The Fluxus related books, catalogues, periodicals, articles, photo-, video- and audio-materials, posters, artists’ books, Fluxus scores and Fluxus objects are essential parts of the Artpool Art Research Center’s library and archive.
Artpool is a unique place for Fluxus research in Hungary, and it is also outstanding at an international level. The exhibitions, meetings, performances, presentations, and other events initiated by Artpool played an important role in the evolution and development of the Fluxus collection. We can highlight the events organized on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Fluxus in 1993, when Fluxus was celebrated worldwide. In connection with the anniversary, Artpool announced an invitation for its project Fluxus Flags which was responded by 42 artists from 18 countries around the world. The received artworks were exhibited on Liszt Ferenc square and became part of the archive’s collection. In the same year, Artpool organized several exhibitions (Artpool Flux, 3x4) in correlation with and based on the Fluxus research taking place at the archive. (http://www.artpool.hu/Fluxus/)
The Fluxus collection also grew as a result of Artpool’s international network and cooperative initiatives. In 1993, Fluxus artists like Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles, Anne Tardos, Jackson Mac Low, Geoffrey Hendricks, Anna Banana, René Block and Ben Vautier visited Hungary on the invitation of Artpool. As an example for the cooperations Ben Vautier and György Galántai organized the Fluxus event Ben square (Ben tér) on Liszt Ferenc squere. Vautier presented his Fluxus action on a podium that became part of Artpool’s Fluxus collection (Ben's Podium).
In 1993, Yoko Ono had a solo exhibition in the Ludwig Museum in Budapest. On this occasion she visited Hungary and donated some of her Fluxus works to Artpool as present.
The most representative part of Artpool’s Fluxus collection is the collection of Fluxus related books, catalogues, periodicals, articles – almost 2500 items (more than one tenth of all the publications). 500 pieces of the bibliography are artists’ books related to Fluxus (published by the British Beau Geste Press, the Italian E.O.N., the Canadian Field Study, the French Doc(k)s, the Belgian Guy Schraenen Éditeur, etc. The bibliography consists of 500 more books and almost 1,500 articles, periodicals, and other source materials. The most important Fluxus related publications were summarised in the Fluxus bibliography compiled by Artpool in 2000. http://www.artpool.hu/Fluxusbibliography/default.html
The Artpool Fluxus archive includes more than 150 video documentations and video works that were presented to the public related to the exhibition Fluxus in Germany from 1962-1994 at Kunsthalle (Műcsarnok) in Budapest in 1996 within the frameworks of the program Fluxus videos at Artpool. The collection consists of Fluxus documentations (of Fluxus events with Ben Vautier, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Filliou, etc.), documentary overviews of the history of Fluxus (e.g.: Larry Miller: Some Fluxus. With George Maciunas, Fluxus, Performances and Events 1978-1990, Eventual Productions, New York, USA, 1991; or the documentation of the Marcel Duchamp Symposion organized in 1987 by Artpool), Fluxus oeuvre videos (about the life of Dick Higgins, Joe Jones, Milan Knizak, etc.) and Fluxus video works (works of Geoffrey Hendricks, La Monte Young, Wolf Vostel, etc.). For a fill list, see: http://www.artpool.hu/fluxvideolist.html
Artpool also has an outstanding collection of examples of artists’ money. These materials were exhibited in the show entitled Money after Money (Artists’ Money) in 2000 which was also the occasion for printing the banknote called “Fluxus Buck” in 7,000 copies by “Artpool Fluxus Bank.”
Artpool’s Fluxus collection attracted wider attention during the exhibition entitled FLUXUS EAST – Fluxus Networks in Central and Eastern Europe, which was first presented at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin in 2007. (http://www.artpool.hu/2007/FluxusEast/) Until 2011, the exhibition was on view in Berlin, Vilnius, Kraków, Tallin, Copenhagen, Oslo and Budapest. Some of the materials on exhibit (facsimiles, documents, letters, publications and objects) had been brought from the archive and collection of Artpool (e.g. the Flux Ping Pong table reconstructed by György Galántai in 2001 on the occasion of the exhibition Impossible Realism after the work of Georges Maciunas realized in 1976) or were exhibited with the intermediation of Artpool (e.g. the reconstruction of Robert Filliou and Joachim Pfeufer’s Poipoidrom in its form presented at the Young Artists’ Club (Fiatal Művészek Klubja) in Budapest in 1976, also realized by Galántai). The FLUXUS EAST exhibition organized at Ludwig Museum Budapest in 2008 (http://www.artpool.hu/2008/080418e.html) was complemented with Ben's Podium, done by Ben Vautier as part of the project BEN vauTiER in 1993, which was used by Geoffrey Hendricks for his performance at the opening of the exhibition in 2008. Artpool also published the book FLUXUS. Interviews, texts, events edited by Júlia Klaniczay and Annamária Szőke on the occasion of the exhibition in Budapest. In connection with, the exhibition Artpool organized an event entitled Flux Med (Doctor Bob) (Artpool P60, April 18-May 30, 2008, http://www.artpool.hu/Fluxus/Watts/exhibition.html) presenting Fluxus artist Robert Watts’ silkscreen prints, donated to Artpool by Francesco Conz accompanied by many other Fluxus publications.
In 2011 Artpool organized the exhibition Fluxus (Sport) Events in Kapolcs, Hungary, (http://www.artpool.hu/K55/2011/index_en.html) which presented Fluxus objects regarding different types of sports by Hungarian and international Fluxus artists (e.g. Gábor Attalai, Tamás Komoróczky, Antal Lakner, Dóra Maurer, Julius Koller, Milan Adamciak, Chris Burden, etc.)
Other researchable Fluxus related topics at Artpool:
copy art, electronic arts, fanzine, mail art, artists’ book, neoism