Ken Friedman: 12 structures

What's the score? These works by Ken Friedman are designed as scores, which can be seen as proposal pieces or instructions for actions, performances, enactments or events. The score notation combines the authority of the artist's intention while being an Intermedia work that can easily stored and distributed, as a single A4 paper, for future retrieval and realisation.

Is the score the work? In Ken Friedman's practice the work resides in the idea, the score, the process and the realisation; each has its own value and meaning.

What's Fluxus? First, it is a laboratory for ideas and social change. The Fluxus moment developed in the 60s facilitated initially by Georges Maciunas in New York and grew to include artists such as Yoko Ono, Joseph Beuys, Ben Vautier, Milan Knizak, Nam June Paik, Ken Friedman...

What's a Fluxus concert? The idea of the Score suggests musicality. Like a musical score, it represents an individual's mind and intention. Like a score, it can be realised by artists other than the original creator. And like a score, it is open to variation in realisation and interpretation. On April 3, Ken Friedman conducted the performance of a number of his scores. These works refer to the concert and vaudeville tradition and to the very origins of performance art in European Dada.

Why the Centre of Attention? The Centre has worked to realise this project with Ken Friedman. It underlines ideas that the Centre shares with him and Fluxus in a general way. These include ideas around intimacy, networks and the city; gesture; and the Fluxus tendency to escape the boundaries of the art world and shape a discourse that belongs to each of us. Our goal is to be a laboratory of research, not to follow the sterile professionalism encouraged by art institutions.

More about Ken Friedman? Since discovering himself an artist during the revolutionary ferment of the 60s, Ken Friedman has been intent on creating meaningful work characterised by humanism and social responsibility. He views art as a social function producing models for action and behaviour to enhance one's daily lived life. He seeks and then directs us towards the marvellous in the mundane. He combines a neo-enlightenment advocacy of the experimental model with a spiritual accent that leads to work that could be viewed as prayers for a secular age. The work of this unique artist combines wit and brevity, performance and musicality, Duchamp and Zen, Dada and concept art, minimalism and gesture all fired in the furnace of a revolutionary moment. He has been exhibited in many international museums and galleries.

Anything else? Ken Friedman will be giving a talk at the Centre of Attention on Friday 2nd April, 7 to 8 pm, with Art Happens (the Art Fund).

"12 structures", a Centre of Attention publication of the scores will be produced for this exhibition and available in limited paper edition from the gallery as well on free unlimited electronic edition.

Pressetext

Ken Friedman: 12 structures
the centre of attention 

Fluxus concert 3 April 2004 conducted by Ken Friedman with Oreet Ashery, Darryl Biggs, Mertxe Cano, Eleanor Cracknell, Deej Fabyc, Tim Harrison, Davida Hewlett, James Hollands, Darran Leaf, Isabella Zuhal Parla, Yann Perreau, Tai Shani, Andrea Winkler