Henry Flynt
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Henry Flynt was born in 1940 in Greensboro, NC. He is a philosopher, musician, anti-art activist and exhibited artist.
Flynt’s work devolves from what he calls “cognitive nihilism,” first announced in the 1960 and 1961 drafts of Philosophy Proper. (The 1961 draft was published with other early work in his book Blueprint for a Higher Civilization, Milan, 1975.) He refined these dispensations in the “Is there language?” trap, published as “Primary Study” in 1964. In 1961, Flynt coined the term concept art. Concept art’s first appearance in a book was in An Anthology, release date 1963. In 1962, Flynt began to campaign for an anti-art position. He demonstrated against cultural institutions in New York in 1963 with Tony Conrad and Jack Smith, and against Stockhausen twice in 1964. He wanted art to be superseded by “veramusement” and “brend,” neologisms meaning approximately pure recreation.
From about 1980, Flynt has given a great deal of time to two endeavors which did not achieve the notoriety of the early actions—"meta-technology" and "personhood theory." In 1987, he revived concept art for tactical reasons; he spent seven years in the art world. After that, Flynt began to publish recorded but unreleased musical compositions; over ten CDs have appeared as of 2007. Because of his friendship and collaboration with George Maciunas, Flynt sometimes gets linked to Fluxus by unsympathetic reviewers.
[edit] Bibliography
- Blueprint for a Higher Civilization, 1975
- Io, Number 41, 1988, a special issue on Henry Flynt and Christer Hennix
[edit] Discography
- New American Ethnic Music Volume 2: Spindizzy
- C Tune
- You Are My Everlovin' / Celestial Power
- Graduation and Other New Country and Blues Music
- Raga Electric
- Backporch Hillbilly Blues, vol 1
- Backporch Hillbilly Blues, vol 2
- I Don't Wanna
- Purified by the Fire
