KEN FRIEDMAN

Fluxus artist Ken Friedman’s 92 Events - 63 years of event scores - together with Friedman’s 2021 work, Six Philosophical Events are in exhibition at C.X. Silver Gallery in the New England art hub of Brattleboro, Vermont from January 4 through April 28 2022.. Friedman produces conceptual, action-oriented, language-based works that attach themselves to daily life and challenge the idea of an artwork as a unique object. Each event score is transcribed on its own sheet. This exhibition was conceived by the artist and Copenhagen-based art historian Peter van der Meijden. Concurrent with the 92 Events retrospective, Ken Friedman presents a new work from 2021, Six Philosophical Events. This is installed adjacent to 92 Events. 

Digital versions of the 92 Events exhibition guide by Stephen Cleland edited by Adam Silver are available by link, along with essays by the artist and Peter van der Meijden, together with a digital version of Six Philosophical Events 2021.

Visiting hours are open 6 days a week 11am to 8pm, closed Tuesdays, free admission. Masking is required of all visitors in Brattleboro public spaces as well as the observance of social distancing, hand sanitizer provided, and other pandemic protocols in effect. For further inquiries, contact the Gallery by email or call 802-257-7898 ext. 1

Event Scores are scripts for activities. These can be instructions, proposals, or rhetorical questions as simple and enigmatic as single lines of text. Event scores are one form among many that Fluxus art can take. Fluxus, resisting formal definition and categorization, is a decentralized international community of visual and conceptual artists, poets, musicians, and performers. Fluxus events work across media, often text-based, with installations, performances, and sculpture that merge ‘art’ with ‘not art.’ Fluxus art sometimes involves concepts, sometimes things, and sometimes activities experienced by participants or observers.

Ken Friedman 92 Events (1956-2019) and link to exhibition views

exhibition view of Ken Friedman 92 Events at C X Silver Gallery Brattleboro

In the first 10 years of these events, from the 1950s to the mid-1960s, Friedman did not think of his events and activities as art. He did not present them in the context of art. He simply thought of them as ideas and projects. Speaking of these activities, Friedman explains ”I enacted them in systematic, organized ways. I realized them in public spaces, parks, and such visible venues as churches, conference centers, radio programs, and – once or twice – on television.” Friedman came into Fluxus through correspondence with Dick Higgins of Something Else Press. Higgins sent him to meet George Maciunas. Maciunas invited Friedman to join the Fluxus circle, describing him as a concept artist. Friedman continues, “In explaining the event tradition, George gave me a theoretical structure for the activities that had been central to my experience. George suggested that I notate my activities in the form of event scores.”

The 92 Events exhibition is now on a global tour. Originating at the Tongji University College of Design and Innovation in Shanghai, the first venue of the tour was in NewZealand at Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery of Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington. The exhibition later went to Spain, Lithuania, and Connecticut. It will soon be seen in Poland and Italy.

Born in the U.S. and now based in Sweden, Ken Friedman is Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies at Tongji University in Shanghai, Professor Emeritus at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, and Eminent Scholar at the College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning of the University of Cincinnati. He was formerly Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design at the Norwegian School of Management in Oslo. Friedman is a practicing artist and designer active in the international laboratory of art, design, music and architecture known as Fluxus. His work is represented in major museums and galleries around the world including the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College, and Stadtsgalerie Stuttgart.

Exhibition View of 92 Events | Exhibition Guide to 92 Events | Friedman essays on 92 Events | van der Meijden essay | Six Philosophical Events (2021)