George Brecht (1926)
Germany

"George Brecht (1926-2008) was an American avant-garde conceptual artist and composer. His artistic work is accompanied by deep theoretical reflection mixing art and science. Chance, randomness and paradox are among his favorite themes. He is one of the historic members of Fluxus, known for his assemblages of everyday objects and his events based on concise textual scores, event scores.
George Brecht studied chemistry and carried out research in several pharmaceutical laboratories until 1965 (he is the author of several patents). Having also studied art history, he began an artistic practice with an interest in randomness in 1953; he writes Chance Imagery. Curious about the work of John Cage, he took classes at the New School for Social Research in New York in 1958-1959. In 1959, his first solo exhibition was entitled Toward Events (Reuben Gallery, New York). In 1963, he organized with Robert Watts the Yam Festival in New York, a set of multifaceted events bringing together the intervention of numerous artists. Inventor of the Fluxus event, he will bring together his compositions on small cards, which will be published by George Maciunas. Boxes and the arrangement of ordinary objects then took a large place in his work, which was organized in 1964 like the pages and chapters of a book: The Book of the Tumbler on Fire. or Book of the tumbler on the fire]. He stayed in Rome, then returned to New York, organizing with Robert Watts the Monday Night Letters, weekly performances at the Café Go Go. There he met Robert Filliou, with whom he held between July 1965 and March 1968 La Cédille qui smile in Villefranche- sur-mer, near Nice. Then settling in London, then permanently in Germany in 1970, he exhibited regularly for a few more years, before retiring from the art world."
(Source, website, Les Presses du Réel)

Work :

• Television Piece (1959)