Untitled

The flyer lists performers, sponsors, and a roster of composers associated with avant-garde music. By including institutional names like the New York State Council on the Arts alongside individual artists, it blurs the line between official support and underground activity. The absence of visual imagery emphasizes the event’s conceptual nature, positioning the text itself as the primary artifact of artistic collaboration.

Produced via mailed offset lithography, the print uses a uniform typographic style for composer names, contrasting with the uneven alignment and spacing of other elements. The ink appears slightly uneven, and the paper’s rough edges imply manual handling. These qualities reflect a deliberate rejection of polished commercial printing, favoring immediacy and accessibility over refinement.

Created in 1968, the work was distributed to promote a series of experimental concerts featuring Paik and Moorman. It entered The Museum of Modern Art’s collection as part of its broader effort to document ephemeral performance practices. Its survival as a physical object is unusual, given the transient nature of such flyers, which were often discarded after use.

This piece emerged during a period when artists like Paik and Moorman were redefining music and performance through interdisciplinary, often chaotic events. The inclusion of institutional sponsors alongside radical composers signals a tension between institutional legitimacy and avant-garde disruption. Such flyers were vital tools for connecting niche audiences in a pre-digital era.

The flyer exemplifies how artists used mundane print media to circulate radical ideas outside traditional galleries. Its preservation underscores the growing recognition of performance documentation as art. Today, it stands as a record of collaborative networks that challenged boundaries between composer, performer, and audience.