February 24 through June 10, 2007
At The Busch-Reisinger Museum (more about the Busch-Reisinger Museum)

Various Artists, Flux Year Box 2, late 1960s. Mixed media, 20 x 20 x 8.5 cm. Fogg Art Museum. Barbara and Peter Moore Fluxus Collection, Margaret Fisher Fund and gift of Barbara Moore/Bound & Unbound, M26448. Photo: Photographic Services © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Multiple Strategies stages a dialogue between the work of German artist Joseph Beuys and that of the loose international collective known as Fluxus, and in particular its principle organizer/designer/ impresario George Maciunas. Although they were not always sympathetic to each other’s methods, throughout their careers both Beuys and Maciunas pursued a common goal of erasing the boundary between art and life. The production of multiples played a key role these efforts, often acting as a mediator between the production of objects and a growing emphasis on artistic process and action unfolding in real time. Ignoring traditional aesthetic criteria, these works often demanded a radical reconsideration of the relationship between the object and its “viewer”. Organized thematically around a set of common concerns, the exhibition examines the role of the printed or object multiple in these artists’ pursuit of an expanded notion of what art could and should be.

Drawing from the significant holdings of Beuys and Fluxus in the permanent collections of the Busch-Reisinger Museum and the Fogg Art Museum respectively, the exhibition will offer a unique pairing of the two. Both Fluxus and Beuys have been the subject of numerous large-scale exhibitions over the past few decades, however, this will be the first time any institution has mounted an exhibition specifically examining the relationship between the two bodies of work.

Curated by Jacob Proctor, Ruth V S Lauer Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Prints, and Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History of Art and Architecture.

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