RETROSPECTIVE – DICK HIGGINS

PRESS RELEASE (in Finnish)

The exhibition by American artist Dick Higgins (b. 1938) continues the Pori Art Museum’s series of Fluxus exhibitions, which has previously featured the works of Yoko Ono and Geoffrey Hendricks. Dick Higgins is one of the pioneers of Fluxus art, having participated in some of the earliest happenings in the late 1950s and co-founded the Fluxus movement in the early 1960s.

A central concept developed by Higgins is intermedia, which defines the new forms of artistic expression that emerged in the early 1960s. During this period, the avant-garde movements in visual arts, literature, music, and dance created experimental forms that could not be categorized within traditional artistic genres. The concept of intermedia is embodied in Higgins’ own work, which spans compositions, literature, manifestos, actions, assemblages, films, and paintings. The Pori Art Museum exhibition presents a selection of Higgins’ works from 1959 to 1990.

In the late 1950s, Higgins attended John Cage’s experimental composition classes at the New School for Social Research in New York. Like Cage, Higgins has created compositions based on chance operations. The exhibition includes works from his ongoing series One Thousand Symphonies, which began in 1968. Higgins has also redefined the concept of music through works such as Mechanical Music (1959), in which traditional instruments are replaced by sounds produced by various household appliances.

An essential part of Dick Higgins’ life work is the Something Else Press, a publishing house that promoted and popularized the experimental art of the 1960s and 1970s, including happenings, performances, concrete poetry, music, and art theory. The exhibition features publications from the press, including Higgins’ scores and books, as well as works published by other Fluxus artists.

Since the 1980s, Higgins has focused on painting. The themes of his paintings include cosmological and astrological symbols.

The exhibition has been curated by Ina Blom and realized in collaboration with the Norwegian Henie-Onstad Art Centre.

Publication:
ISBN 951-9355-44-8
Dick Higgins Porin taidemuseo 7.4.-14.5.1995
Finnish appendix to Dick Higgins exhibition catalog
Jacques Donguy: An Interview with Dick Higgins
Dick Higgins: Boredom and dancer
Translation: Matti Velhonoja
Painohäme Oy, Ylöjärvi 1995

Translated with ChatGPT