Fluxfilms

Presented in collaboration with Japan Society Gallery’s current exhibition, Out of Bounds: Japanese Women Artists in Fluxus, on display until January 21, we’re honored to present a rare evening of films from the 1960s Fluxus movement. Spanning from the absurd to the avant garde, and ranging from 10 seconds to 10 minutes in length, Fluxus’ films are unique experimental ephemera created by many of the key global voices instrumental to the Fluxus revolution, with filmmakers including Nam June Paik, George Maciunas and Yoko Ono. Join us in celebrating a radical artistic spirit still resonant 60 years later. Followed by a conversation with Fluxus filmmaker Jeffrey Perkins and Out of Bounds guest curator Midori Yoshimoto.

Multiple Directors, 1963-1970, Approx 60 min., Digital.

About the Speakers

Jeffrey Perkins is an experimental filmmaker and Fluxus artist. Perkins was born in New York and attended high school in Springfield, Massachusetts. Perkins met Yoko Ono when stationed in Tokyo as an Air Force medic and temporarily lived with her when he returned to New York in 1966, a period when he also became actively involved in New York’s Fluxus community. He collaborated with Tony Cox on the film Shout (Fluxus Film #22) and shot Yoko Ono’s film Bottoms (Fluxus Film #4). In the late 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles with Ski Party star Bobbi Shaw and projected at the Cinematheque 16 on the Sunset Strip where he met Peter Mays. He performed in Mays’ film Sister Midnight and collaborated with Mays, David Lebrun, Michael Scroggins and Larry Janss on Single Wing Turquoise Bird, a popular psychedelic light show. His more recent works include a series of taxicab recordings called Films for the Blind and the films George and The Painter Sam Francis.

Midori Yoshimoto is professor of art history and gallery director at New Jersey City University. Yoshimoto’s areas of expertise are post-1945 Japanese art and its global intersections, with a particular emphasis on women artists, Fluxus and intermedia art. Her dissertation, Into Performance: Japanese Women Artists in New York, was published in 2005 (Rutgers University Press). She has contributed to numerous museum catalogs, including: Yes Yoko Ono (Japan Society, 2000); Japanese Women Artists in Avant-garde Movements (Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Art, 2005); Dissonance: Six Japanese Women Artists (Toyota Museum of Art, 2008); Yayoi Kusama (Centre Pompidou, 2011); Ay-O Over the Rainbow Once Again (The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, 2012); Gutai: Splendid Playground (Guggenheim Museum, 2013); and Yoko Ono One Woman Show (MoMA, 2015).

Your ticket also includes complimentary admission for one person to Out of Bounds: Japanese Women Artists in Fluxus, on view at Japan Society Gallery through January 21, 2024. Please come early to view the exhibition and show your ticket/receipt to the Welcome Desk for free admission until 7 p.m.

Image: Yoko Ono, Eyeblink (Fluxus Film #9), 1966.

Film programs are generously supported by ORIX Corporation USA, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and Yen Press. Endowment support is provided by the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund and The John and Miyoko Davey Endowment Fund. Additional season support is provided by The Globus Family, Geoff and Fumi Matters, David Toberisky, and Friends of Film. Transportation assistance is provided by Japan Airlines, the official Japanese airline sponsor of Japan Society Film. Housing assistance is provided by the Kitano Hotel, the official hotel sponsor of Japan Society Film.

Out of Bounds: Japanese Women Artists in Fluxus is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Exhibitions and Arts & Culture Lecture Programs at Japan Society are made possible, in part, by Sompo Holdings, Inc.; the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Endowment Fund; the Mary Griggs Burke Endowment Fund established by the Mary Livingston Griggs and Mary Griggs Burke Foundation; The Masako Mera and Koichi Mera, PhD Fund for Education and the Arts; Peggy and Dick Danziger; Thierry Porté and Yasko Tashiro; Mrs. Jane B. DeBevoise; Mrs. Jane Lombard; Inukai Estate; and Friends of the Gallery. Support for Arts & Culture Lecture Programs is provided, in part, by the Sandy Heck Lecture Fund. Transportation assistance is provided by Japan Airlines, the official Japanese airline sponsor for Japan Society gallery exhibitions.

Japan Society programs are made possible by leadership support from Booth Ferris Foundation and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.