Reminiscencijos / Reminiscences

This book brings together two of the most renowned Lithuanians in the American art world: the poet and pioneer of avant-garde cinema Jonas Mekas (1922–2019), and the founder of the Fluxus movement George Maciunas (1931–1978). For both artists, playfulness was the key to transcending the traumas of the Second World War and confronting the absurdity and nihilism of the postwar years. They believed that art could be made at any time, anywhere and from anything, and that every moment mattered. Mekas, a creative and entrepreneurial spirit who settled in New York, began filming avant-garde cinema, and built an entire infrastructure that allowed it to thrive. He published specialised film magazines and wrote articles, organised film screenings and festivals, brought together avant-garde filmmakers, and founded the Anthology Film Archives. Alongside his cinematic work, he also wrote poetry. As in his films, his poetry collection Reminiscencijos (Reminiscences) reveals a documentary, diary-based relationship with the world: the poet records memories of his journey through war-torn European cities, and his eventual move to America. While Mekas was expanding the Anthology Film Archives, Maciunas was assembling and distributing small ‘anthologies’ of Fluxus artists’ work. Each of these editions, a book (Fluxyearbook), a suitcase (Fluxkit), or a box (Fluxyearbox), contained documentation on Fluxus concerts and happenings, performance instructions, conceptual artworks, and interactive games. When Maciunas created a handmade wooden box-cover for Mekas’ book of poems and photographs, a collective Fluxus object was born: the artist’s book. Number 73 in the collection belongs to the part of the edition whose covers were crafted by Maciunas himself using salvaged boxes and goods pallets. (After Maciunas’ death in 1978, Mekas took over their production.) The cover, which is reminiscent of an old wooden suitcase, echoes poignantly Mekas’ nostalgic, melancholic poems, and the complex interplay between memory and forgetting.

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album ARTISTS ON THE MOVE (2025). Compiler and text author Laura Petrauskaitė

This book brings together two of the most renowned Lithuanians in the American art world: the poet and pioneer of avant-garde cinema Jonas Mekas (1922–2019), and the founder of the Fluxus movement George Maciunas (1931–1978). For both artists, playfulness was the key to transcending the traumas of the Second World War and confronting the absurdity and nihilism of the postwar years. They believed that art could be made at any time, anywhere and from anything, and that every moment mattered. Mekas, a creative and entrepreneurial spirit who settled in New York, began filming avant-garde cinema, and built an entire infrastructure that allowed it to thrive. He published specialised film magazines and wrote articles, organised film screenings and festivals, brought together avant-garde filmmakers, and founded the Anthology Film Archives. Alongside his cinematic work, he also wrote poetry. As in his films, his poetry collection Reminiscencijos (Reminiscences) reveals a documentary, diary-based relationship with the world: the poet records memories of his journey through war-torn European cities, and his eventual move to America. While Mekas was expanding the Anthology Film Archives, Maciunas was assembling and distributing small ‘anthologies’ of Fluxus artists’ work. Each of these editions, a book (Fluxyearbook), a suitcase (Fluxkit), or a box (Fluxyearbox), contained documentation on Fluxus concerts and happenings, performance instructions, conceptual artworks, and interactive games. When Maciunas created a handmade wooden box-cover for Mekas’ book of poems and photographs, a collective Fluxus object was born: the artist’s book. Number 73 in the collection belongs to the part of the edition whose covers were crafted by Maciunas himself using salvaged boxes and goods pallets. (After Maciunas’ death in 1978, Mekas took over their production.) The cover, which is reminiscent of an old wooden suitcase, echoes poignantly Mekas’ nostalgic, melancholic poems, and the complex interplay between memory and forgetting.

Text author Laura Petrauskaitė

Source: Law firm Valiunas Ellex art album ARTISTS ON THE MOVE (2025). Compiler and text author Laura Petrauskaitė