Fluxus and the Politics of Zen Buddhism

Abstract

Fluxus, as one of the most complex and ambiguous artist groups that emerged in the 1960s, is ever-contemporary that calls forth constant reexamination, redefinition, and reevaluation within the multiple criteria of contemporary art. I argue that the complicated aspects of Fluxus relate to strands of Zen Buddhism, and that these strands are interwoven with distinct historical and political contexts, where the modern discourse of Zen Buddhism was constructed and operated. I focus particularly on how wartime Japan’s nationalist propaganda of Zen Buddhism was de-politicized in the cultural arena of postwar America as a selfless spiritual discipline, and how this apolitical aspect of Zen was strategically utilized by George Maciunas, the Fluxus organizer, for avant-garde art practice. By positing the formation of Fluxus within John Cage’s experimental music, I complicate the Cagean principle with the discourse of Zen Buddhism in terms of its sociological significance within the turmoil of the 1960s, when the spirit of anti-authority and counter-cultural impetus erupted in the form of antiwar protests and the expansion of the awareness on cultural diversity. I argue that at the core of the tension between certain Fluxus artists and Maciunas resided their disparate understandings of Zen and the different ideological stances.