Intermedia, Fluxus and the Something Else Press: Selected Writings by Dick Higgins

Intermedia, Fluxus and the Something Else Press: Selected Writings by Dick Higgins
Author: Dick Higgins
Publisher:
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2018-11-20
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9781938221200

Dick Higgins and his Something Else Press epitomized the riotous art of the '60s There are few art-world figures as influential--and as little known--as Dick Higgins (1938-98), cofounder of Fluxus, "polyartist," poet, scholar, theorist, composer, performer and, not least, the publisher of the legendary Something Else Press. In 1965 he restored the term "intermedia" to the English language, giving it new dimension to recognize the dissolution of boundaries between traditional modes of art-making and the open field for new forms that cannot be compartmentalized. His own contributions to intermedia are many--as a participant and instigator of happenings, as writer and composer straddling traditional and vanguard forms, among others--but it was Something Else Press (1963-74) that redefined how "the book" could inhabit that energized, in-between space. Something Else Press was as much a critical statement and radical experiment as it was a collection of books by some of the most luminary artists and writers of the 20th century: Gertrude Stein, John Cage, Ray Johnson, Dieter Roth, Bern Porter, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Emmett Williams, Robert Filliou, and George Brecht, among many others. Along with his Great Bear Pamphlet series and the Something Else newsletter, Higgins exploited and subverted conventional book production and marketing strategies to get unconventional and avant-garde works into the hands of new and often unsuspecting readers. Edited by Granary Books publisher Steve Clay and Fluxus artist Ken Friedman, this judiciously curated and indispensable compendium of essays, theoretical writings and narrative prose dives deep into the ever-influential ideas that Higgins explored in theory and practice. Clay and Friedman have chosen works that illuminate Higgins' voracious intellectual appetite, encyclopedic body of knowledge and playful yet rigorous experimentation in a selection that includes many writings long out of print or difficult to find.

Foew&ombwhnw

Foew&ombwhnw
Author: Dick Higgins
Publisher:
Total Pages: 328
Release: 1969
Genre: Artists' books
ISBN:

Fantastic Architecture

Fantastic Architecture
Author: Dick Higgins
Publisher:
Total Pages: 194
Release: 2015
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 9780990689607

Originally published by Something Else Press, 1971.

Poems Plain & Fancy

Poems Plain & Fancy
Author: Dick Higgins
Publisher: Station Hill
Total Pages: 170
Release: 1986
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

Poetry. "Any number of people may read this book. They do so by being cheerful in advance; if they aren't they get that way as they read. These collected poems illustrate a cheerful (and scholarly) collected life"--John Cage.

Horizons, the Poetics and Theory of the Intermedia

Horizons, the Poetics and Theory of the Intermedia
Author: Dick Higgins
Publisher:
Total Pages: 162
Release: 1984
Genre: Art
ISBN:

Written for the lay reader as well as for academic literary theorists, this book bridges the gulf between the artistic avant-garde in music, visual arts, and experimental literature and the general public. Higgins delves into multiple areas, but here is an example of one kind of poem he works with: those pieces that move like thisthose pieces i say are snowflakes i saythose pieces that move like thisthose piecesAlong with many other artistsJohn Cage, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jackson Mac Low come to mindDick Higgins has investigated and invented a variety of genres and forms, working especially in intermedia, the fusion of two or more discrete media. His poetics travel some distance from the poetry of the past. Here he uses the fusion of the receiver s and the artist s horizons, their knowledge, feelings, experiences, and imaginings to provide a vivid account of artistic experimentation over the last thirty years."

Fluxus Experience

Fluxus Experience
Author: Hannah Higgins
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2002-12-12
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0520228677

Hannah Higgins explores the influential art movement Fluxus. Daring, disparate and contentious, Fluxus artists worked with minimal and prosaic materials now familiar in post-World War II art. Higgins describes the experience of Fluxus for viewers as affirming transactions between the self and the world.