By Kristin Waller

According to the introduction given by Helen Molesworth, curator of contemporary art at the Harvard Art Museum, Alison Knowles RI ’10 helped found “probably the most important art movement you haven’t heard of.” Knowles corrected that oversight on October 19, when she delivered “Fluxus Around the Clock,” this year’s Julia S. Phelps Annual Lecture in Art and Humanities, held in the Radcliffe Gymnasium.

In the 1960s, Knowles noted, New York City’s Canal Street was like none other in history. Barrels filled with knickknacks lined the wide avenue, and an enterprising artist could gather materials for little money. The Fluxus cohort did just that. Knowles showed slides of a parade of pieces, including her own Bean Rolls, book objects made from cans, scrolls of text, and beans. (She admitted to a preoccupation with beans: “I study them, and I use them in my art, and I eat them, like everybody else.”)

But Fluxus, she explained, dealt with more than found objects. It sought to blur the distinction between artist and audience. Event scores turned simple actions into performances, like her 1962 Make a Salad. Her 1967 collaboration with Marcel Duchamp, a silk screen-print of Coeurs Volants, proved that more traditional media were also game. Poetry, too, served as fodder for Fluxus: Knowles’s “The House of Dust,” perhaps the world’s first computerized poem, earned her a 1968 Guggenheim Fellowship.

After the history lesson, the lights in the Radcliffe Gymnasium dimmed, and five women joined Knowles on stage to perform event scores. In Newspaper Music, they pulled out rustling papers, reading aloud as Knowles conducted. When she signaled a decrescendo, the multilingual tumult turned into the low murmur of a coffee shop before dwindling to whispers. Then Jessica Higgins, an intermedia artist and Knowles’s daughter, stepped forward for Loose Pages. Higgins became a living sculpture for Knowles, who dressed her in leaves of flaxen paper. As Knowles added pages to her legs, Higgins curled around her mother’s body for support.

After the performance, an audience member asked Knowles if she found special meaning in performing with Higgins. Yes, Knowles replied, “I like the concept that I can’t find the right dress for her . . . because it’s got to be perfect for Jessica.” The questioner? Susan Phelps Napier, daughter of Julia S. Phelps, the art historian and teacher for whom this Radcliffe Institute lecture series was named.

Top: Nivea Cream for Emmett Williams, an event score by Alison Knowles. Bottom: Knowles's Loose Pages. Photos by Dick Higgins.