The Event Score as a Transnational device. Fluxus Practices and the Case of Giuseppe Chiari (1926–2007)

Abstract

The contribution examines the Event score as a key artistic device for the development and expansion of Fluxus avant-garde as a transnational, non-hierarchical movement. Originating in the experiments of George Brecht and informed by John Cage’s ideas on Indeterminacy, the Event score is understood as a transcultural language capable of circulating beyond national, disciplinary, and authorial borders. Through an analysis of artists’ collaboration, mail correspondence, and Dick Higgins’s concept of exemplativism, the study focuses in particular on the work of the Italian composer and Fluxus artist Giuseppe Chiari (1926-2007). His practice demonstrates how the score functioned simultaneously as a compositional method, performative instruction, and a medium of exchange, allowing Fluxus works to travel internationally without requiring the artist’s physical mobility.