George maciunas turns 95!

"Experiencing Fluxus as a way of life is the only way to know Jurgis." – Billie Maciunas On Friday, October 16, at 6:00 PM, we invite you to the opening of the exhibition "Experiencing Jurgis Mačiūnas" at the Kaunas Picture Gallery (K. Donelaičio St. 16, Kaunas), dedicated to the artist's 95th birthday. At 6:30 PM, Anton Lukoszevieze will perform "Solo for Balloons," a piece created by Jurgis Mačiūnas in 1962. It is an experimental music work where sound is born from simple actions and their execution. This exhibition is not a story about the past. It is an invitation to re-experience the ideas of Jurgis Mačiūnas today through the works of contemporary Lithuanian artists: art can be life itself, and we can create life as a work of art – here and now. Fluxus is not just another art style; it is a way of living and thinking, a unique philosophy that seeks to turn everyday life into something creative, playful, and full of surprises and jokes. Fluxus raises questions that remain relevant today: what is art? what should it be? where does art end and life begin? The artists in the exhibition reveal their individual creative spirits through their work. This is not an attempt to replicate Fluxus – rather, it is a series of different reactions in new forms to the ideas and challenges posed by this movement. Jurgis Mačiūnas was born in 1931 in Kaunas, then the temporary capital of Lithuania. Having grown up in an environment of Lithuanian culture and European modernism, where art was an inseparable part of daily life, he later became the founder and central figure of the Fluxus movement in New York. Seeking to make art an elementary part of everyday life, Jurgis declared: "Rain is anti-art, the bustle of a crowd is anti-art, a sneeze is anti-art, the flight of a butterfly or the movement of microbes is anti-art. They are just as beautiful and worthy of attention as art itself." Jurgis Mačiūnas brought together artists, musicians, poets, and thinkers for whom art was not a separate sphere of life, but life itself became a work of art. The friendship between Jurgis and Vytautas Landsbergis, which began in school, lasted a lifetime, and thanks to Landsbergis, radical Fluxus ideas reached Lithuania during the Soviet era, later becoming an important part of our cultural history. In New York, Jurgis met Jonas Mekas, who, noticing his talent, entrusted him with the design of the cult avant-garde film magazine "Film Culture." Later, Mekas became one of the first residents of the "Fluxhouse" cooperative in New York's SoHo district, and his wife, Hollis Melton, contributed to the administration of the Fluxhouses. Another important acquaintance was made with Almas Šalčius, co-founder of the AG Gallery, with whom they planned to publish the Lithuanian cultural magazine "Fluxus." These connections are not accidental – they were an important part of Mačiūnas's biography. Communication, collaboration, sharing ideas, and constant change were inseparable from his creative practice, as was the development of mail art. Jurgis Mačiūnas was a visionary with an exceptional education, a talented designer, and an architect. He studied graphic design and architecture at the Cooper Union, architectural engineering at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and delved into art history at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University. Despite his elite knowledge and international reputation, Jurgis chose a strikingly simple, ascetic daily life – often compared by contemporaries to a monk due to his style of dress and way of life. At the end of his life, Jurgis met the poet Billie Hutching. Beside Billie, he opened up, found intimacy, and a person with whom he could complement one another – this love gave his life fulfillment. Their radical black-and-white wedding performance, "Black and White," set to the madrigal "Zefiro Torna" by Jurgis's beloved composer Claudio Monteverdi, became the culmination of his life and work. It was his final public appearance, in which art and life finally became one. Artists: Jurgis Mačiūnas (George Maciunas), Hollis Melton, Monika Žaltė, Julija Račiūnaitė, Inga Navickaitė-Drąsutė, Rimantas Plungė, Romualdas Požerskis, Barbora Gediminaitė, Austėja Auškalnytė, Julius Ziz, Anton Lukoszevieze, Vytautas Buinevičius. Exhibition Curator: Vilma Dobilaitė Partners: Valencia Photo, Billie Maciunas, Kaunas Artists' House Exhibition Coordinators: Lina Pranaitytė, Gintarė Žaltauskaitė-Mikutavičienė Fluxus Collection Consultant: Miglė Morkūnaitė-Vervečkienė Exhibition Designer: Jonas Vaikšnoras Exhibition dates: 2026 10 16–2027 02 28 The exhibition opening event is free; on other days, admission is with a museum visitor ticket. The event is public; filming and photography may take place. By attending the event, you agree to be visible in event photos and videos and are informed that these photos and videos may be published publicly.