ISSUE Project Room is pleased to present James Rushford performing Fluxorum Organum, an overlooked and mesmerizing durational work for solo pipe organ by the Danish artist Henning Christiansen, at Brooklyn’s First Unitarian Congregational Society. Originally composed to accompany Joseph Beuys's 1967 action Eurasienstab, the first performances took place in 1967 in Vienna, and 1968 in Antwerp, with manipulated tape recordings of the work played back during Beuys's performance. It is difficult to find documentation of a performance beyond these two historical events— Christiansen released 2 LPs, Op. 50 and Op. 39, combining field recordings of Beuy’s performance with the scored organ work.
Henning Christiansen was a key figure in the post-war Fluxus movement, incorporating wild and varied practices into his visual art and music. Fluxorum Organum is a rare example of Christiansen's fully notated compositions, demonstrating an atypical elegance and moving intimacy often overshadowed by his more bombastic collage-based work. James Rushford interprets the mammoth score in its purest form, as an unaccompanied solo piece, in the beautiful surrounds of the First Unitarian Congregational Society.
James Rushford (b. Melbourne 1985) is a Los Angeles-based composer, keyboardist, violist and improviser. His work is drawn from a familiarity with specific concrète, improvised, avant-garde and collagist languages. He has been commissioned by ensembles including BBC Scottish Symphony (Glasgow), Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Neon (Oslo), Speak Percussion, Synergy Percussion, Ensemble Offspring, Soundstream, The Song Company, and Decibel, and has had work featured in the Melbourne International Arts Festival (2006 and 2008), Norway Ultima Festival (2011), Unsound Festival (New York 2014), Tectonics Festival (Scotland 2013) and the Liquid Architecture Festival (2010). Performance highlights include Steim Institute (Amsterdam), Logos Foundation (Ghent), Issue Project Room (New York), Instants Chavirés (Paris), Café Oto (London), Super Deluxe (Tokyo), Centre for Contemporary Art (Warsaw), Only Connect Festival (Oslo), Now Now (2011/2012), Adelaide Festival (2014) and the Melbourne International Jazz Festival (2011). Collaborators include Oren Ambarchi, Kassel Jaeger, Jon Rose, Golden Fur, Ned Collette, Graham Lambkin, Sophia Brous, Crys Cole and Joe Talia. His music and performances have been published by Cajid Media (AUS), Pogus (US), Sabbatical (AUS), Touch (UK), Prisma (Norway), Mego (Austria), Bocian (Poland), Penultimate Press (UK), Loopy (US) and Kye (US).
Henning Christensen (1932-2008) was a Danish composer and artist, known as one of the central figures of the Danish branch of the Fluxus movement. Having studied composition at the Royal Conservatory of Music, Copenhagen, in the early 1950s, he attended the Darmstadt Summer School in 1962, where he became involved with the Fluxus movement and was aligned with the radical Danish art movement Ex School. A mainstay of experimental performance in Denmark, Christensen resented the concepts of isolated artistic genius and genre distinctions, and his entire production can be seen as a subsequent and vibrant example of praxis in a constant flux. This is visible from his engagement in Fluxus, over numerous collaborative performances, to his position as a professor at the Art Academy in Hamburg. From 1964 to 1985 Christiansen collaborated regularly with Joseph Beuys, regularly providing the sonic backdrop for his performances.