Joseph Beuys on Fluxus

“My first concert - apart from Beethoven at School and Satie at the opening of my exhibition in Kleve in 1960 - was at the gallery Parnass in Wuppertal in 1963. Dressed like a regular pianist in dark grey flannel, black tie and no hat, I played the piano all over – not just the keys – with many pairs of old shoes until it disintegrated. My intention was neither destructive nor nihilistic. “Heal like with like” – similia similibus curantur – in the homeopathic sense. The main intention was to indicate a new beginning.. ..or simply a revolutionary act. This was my first public Fluxus appearance.”

“On the first night I performed a 'Concert for tow Musicians'. It lasted for perhaps twenty seconds. I dashed forward in the gap between two performances wound up a clockwork toy, two drummers, on the piano, and let them play until the clockwork ran down. That was the end. The Fluxus people felt that this short action was my breakthrough, while the event of the second evening was perhaps too heavy, complicated and anthropological for them. Yet the “Siberian Symphony, section 1.” contained the essence of all my future activities and was, I felt, a wider understanding of what Fluxus could be.. ..(the Fluxus artists) held a mirror up to people without indicating how to change things. This is not to belittle what they did achieve in the way of indicating connections in life and how art could develop.”