Vilnius, LITHUANIA: The Fluxus Capital.

As I head out on my solo mission today, I am at ease... Three months into a yearlong Hungarian residency, and seven days into an eleven-day tour through Eastern Europe and Scandinavia, I feel like I am where I need to be.

I have no expectations for Vilnius... Going in, all I really know about Lithuania is that the Grateful Dead sponsored their Olympic basketball team in the early nineties... seems like pretty shallow knowledge of a country, but I'm ready to learn now... I never got into history classes (unfortunately I never had Mrs. Rossi when I was in high school); I could barely stay focused in art history class which actually interested me. However, now I'm discovering that I love learning history and it's influence on culture... but only by traveling and building personal relationships with the people and the places!

Naturally, my first stop was the CAC [Contemporary Art Centre]: the largest venue for contemporary art in the Baltic States (2400 sq. metres). It was grand, though it didn't boast near the quality of the Riga Art Centre. However, there were two spots totally worth my time... the Fluxus Cabinet and the Reading Room.

I remember this concept of fluxus art, but only vaguely. Well, by the end of my time in the museum, I'm totally schooled on the international movement (it's presence, it's practices, it's history, it's impact) and yet I'm more confused than ever. Talk about a long strange trip into another dimension... wow!

So, Lithuanian-born George Maciunas is said to be the fundamental founder of the movement (and is also referred to as the pioneer of NYC's SoHo district), thus the prominence of flux art in the city. Primarily influenced by John Cage's experimental music composition classes and other avant-garde artists from the sixties, I get the weirdness. It's about making sense out of nonsense. Make sense? Anyway, I went to the Reading Room (similar to the Open Shelf Library at Denver's MCA) to dig deeper... and found myself magnetized to this book: Fluxus Codex. Finally, I put it down and headed back out into the real world. Before I left, I met this girl in the museum lobby who told me about a really special arts initiative in town that I had to check out... and so, of course, I did.

She gave me directions to this huge building in the city centre, once the Ministry of Health... now the Ministry of Fluxus. I wandered in, by myself, not really knowing what exactly happens there... and just started looking around. There wasn't anyone really around, but I was totally intrigued by what I saw... floors upon floors of open art spaces, studios, foosball, and even a little axillary skatepark room with a halfpipe... wow. I just kept going up the stairs, poking around all of these studios, etc. until I made my way to the fifth floor where I finally found someone to talk to.

I met this cool girl named Eglė, a local artist and member of the Fluxus Ministerija project... She turned out to be the perfect person to meet! She was working on her wall piece (this psychedelic op-art installation), but was psyched to take a break and show me around. She gave me the grand tour of the place, stopping in to meet some resident artists and get the history of the joint.

Basically (as I understand it)... Eglė and 26 other local artists contacted a grip of people in the community to help support an arts cooperative in Vilnius. They heard back from only guy... this rich politician in the city with access to the Ministry of Health, an old unused building with plenty of creative possibility. They pitched him a grand plan and he went for it... thus the project was born. It is a ridiculous space. Eglė took me down to the cellar and showed me the secret tunnels and underground passageways... definitely things I didn't expect to see in Vilnius on my one day in town... but just fortunate to meet such kind people.

She also invited me to a private party at the coop tonight with the grand opening of the bar and music hall on the main floor. There was no way I'd miss it. I saw three Lithuanian acts, all members of the Fluxus Ministry... Saulė (an original hiphop duo, hilarious and smooth... like a young local 3Oh!3), Tofu Eueele (neo-pop soul with horns, nice), and a groove DJ (kinda like a Lithuanian St. Germain)...