Fluxus Club at the Walker Art Center: Part Three

Librarian Margit Wilson and artist Margaret Pezalla-Granlund teamed up to make the Walker Art Center’s library an active art space with Fluxus Club, and we’re delighted to host a new series on their work at the Walker Art Center. This is part 3; read the whole series here. Enjoy! ~Erinn

Fluxus Club at the Walker Art Center: Part Three

by Margaret Pezalla-Granlund & Margit Wilson

While Fluxus Club’s run ended months ago, it’s been so enjoyable for us to reflect on the program over here with the Library as Incubator and share what we learned from our collaboration. In this last post, we will discuss our top takeaways with the hopes that they might provide frameworks for future collaborations.

Plan, Produce, Reflect, Repeat.

As we have mentioned before, one of the most successful aspects of Fluxus Club was that it was an ongoing event with enough time in between sessions that we could be iterative with our planning process. We got to know our audience, our content, and our activities. We had the opportunity to “scaffold” month-to-month: successful aspects of past sessions would return, such as the photocopier visual poems or the typewriter found poetry. This simplified planning a bit (we didn’t reinvent the wheel each month) and created continuity between sessions. With each Fluxus Club, visitors produced a lot of material stuff and this aggregate of materials– posters, newspapers, prints and more– served as a growing archive of the event. We then deployed these materials to help transform the Art Lab into a visually-rich production shop that also felt somewhat like an inclusive clubhouse, where return visitors would recognize things that they made in past visits.

Photo by Gene Pittman. Courtesy Walker Art Center.

Do. Make. Everybody, Now!

We learned early on that we didn’t want to take on the role of explaining Fluxus. Instead we offered visitors a fun, welcoming, accessible way to connect with Fluxus through hands-on activities.  The use of Fluxus-style scores helped unite the activities across the spaces and took the pressure off of making decisions, making it easy for first-time visitors to jump in and participate. Nearly all the activities had a collaborative or communal component: you could write a poem and add it to the Flux-newspaper, or contribute your New Year’s art declaration to the window installation. The important thing wasn’t making a perfect, finished artwork: the important thing was diving in, trying something new, and feeling welcome.

The important thing wasn’t making a perfect, finished artwork: the important thing was diving in, trying something new, and feeling welcome.

Photo by Gene Pittman. Courtesy Walker Art Center.

Transform Traditional Spaces and Expectations.

Making visitors feel welcome was essential in thinking about how to invite visitors into both the Library and the Art Lab. We transformed the otherwise stark Art Lab into a welcoming production shop with thrift-store tablecloths, Fluxus-inspired posters, and an ever-growing display of Fluxus Club projects. The Library, too, underwent transformation: the doors were open after hours, and visitors were invited to drop in without an appointment, browse around, make some art, and stay awhile. Art-making in the Library helped activate the space in a new way by inviting spontaneous participation.

Art-making in the Library helped activate the space in a new way by inviting spontaneous participation.

Photo by Gene Pittman. Courtesy Walker Art Center.

In Conclusion: Collaboration.

Really, the key to this series was collaboration. The Fluxus Club collaboration meant that art-making could extend beyond the art studio, which translated to more connections to the Walker’s resources and multiple ways of engaging visitors. And because we worked on a series of workshops over several months, we could plan– and reflect on how things went– collaboratively.

Want More?

• Follow along with this series as it develops.
• Check out the Walker Art Center and it’s Library online and on social media.

 

Margit Wilson is Assistant Librarian at the Walker Art Center, where she oversees the Rosemary Furtak Collection of artist books in addition to maintaining a general collection of library materials devoted to contemporary art. She comes to librarianship with a background in independent publishing and book arts. She received her MLIS from St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota and her BA in English and French from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.

 

 

Margaret Pezalla-Granlund is an artist and the curator of library exhibitions at Gould Library at Carleton College in Northfield, MN. She has a background in museum education at both science and art museums and has led workshops for the Science Museum of Minnesota, the Walker Art Center, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the St. Paul Public Library. She received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA and her BA from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN.

Author photos by Erin Smith. Courtesy Walker Art Center.

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