KPFA-FM Music Dept. ➔ Holland in Art and Music: The Genial Republic of Robert Filliou
Analog Audio
Event Type
InterviewsOrigin
KPFAIdentifier
AM.1971.XX.XX.04Program Series
Holland in Art and MusicProgram Length
9 minDates
| broadcast| 402 | created
Description
This is an interview and performance art piece by the French American economist turned conceptual artist Robert Filliou (1926-1987), in which he discusses his “installation” at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, where he was in residence from November to December of 1971. The program heard here features two recorded interviews heard simultaneously. The first interview, largely heard in the background, appears to be with an American politician talking about his experience’s serving in Congress. Over this is heard a discussion by Filliou of his philosophy concerning research, genius, and talent, the main themes behind his conceptual art piece then showing at the Museum. The show or installation which he titled “The Genial Republic,” was intended to be conceived as a territory in which people could enter in order to develop their internal genius rather than their external talents. After an initial career as an economist and United Nations advisor, Filliou became interested in theater and visual poetry and involved with the Fluxus art movement, and later became well known for such pronouncements as “research is not the privilege of people who know - on the contrary, it is the domain of people who do not know,” and “"art is that which makes life more interesting than art." Listening to this tape work, with its entanglement of philosophy, politics, art, and self-expression, is to get some sense of the mindset of an extraordinary artist at work.Genres
Performance ArtModern Art
Subjects
Performance artArt, Modern
Conceptual art
Fluxus (group of artists)