Fine Art PR Publicity Announcements News and Information
Fine Art PR Publicity Announcements News and Information

FLUXUS FOUNDER GEORGE MACIUNAS EXHIBITION AT STENDHAL GALLERY CHELSEA, NEW YORK

Stendhal Gallery is pleased to announce the exhibition 7 Paintings from 1950’s and Graphic Works from October 31 – December 19, 2009. One of the exhibitions highlights will be an installation-like display of the typographic print No Smoking, devised by Fluxus artist George Brecht and designed by Maciunas. This print in particular encapsulates key aspects of Fluxus, including artistic collaboration, economy of idea and form, innovative graphic design, humor, early examples of artistic ‘logoing,’ sociopolitical engagement, and even Maciunas’s desire for discipline and commitment to the Fluxus cause. In conjunction with the exhibition Stendhal Gallery
will release a 2-color Hand-pulled screen prints of No Smoking in its striking original black-and-white design. All profits from the sale of this print will go to the George Maciunas Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) non-for profit tax exempt organization.

George Maciunas,Also on display will be recently discovered paintings by Fluxus founder George Maciunas. As these canvases have never been exhibited publicly, this is a rare viewing opportunity and a chance to understand more about Maciunas’s personal history as an artist. Dating from the early- to mid-1950s, when Maciunas was just entering his twenties, the canvases reveal an eclectic mix of influences and interests. Maciunas had not yet begun formal post-secondary training in architecture, design and art, but was already an autodidact in art and its history, both western and eastern. Indeed, European and Asian aesthetics are evident in the images, which variously evoke Max Ernst’s surrealist landscapes, Joan Miro’s colorful biomorphic shapes, a broody German Expressionism, Japanese nature scenes and calligraphic brushstrokes.

No Smoking is printed as a hand-pulled silkscreen in a first edition of 500. For the special price of $300. Please contact the gallery for further information.

www.stendhalgallery.com

Image: George Maciunas, ”No Smoking,” 1971/2009 2 Color Screen Print on 2-Ply Museum Board, First Edition: 500 Price: $300 Numbered Dated on verso in pencil George Maciunas / Stendhal Gallery, 2009