US artist Emmett Williams, a founding member of Fluxus; Japanese artist Ay-O; Chinese American cellist Yo-Yo Ma. These three different talents are brought together by Barbara Wien Gallery in Berlin.The collaborations show the versatility of the late Williams both as a poet and a performance artist. He was an important Fluxus artist, as is Ay-O. Their movement grew out of earlier Dada, in a spirit of rebellion against the establishment. In the Fluxus manifesto written in 1963, George Maciunas speaks about the movement’s aims to “promote living art, anti-art, promote NON ART REALITY…”The Williams works here include monoprints on paper, collected under the title “The Book of O” (1958). For these, he used a rubber stamp with the letter “O” as a sort of paint brush, creating abstract shapes. The compositions’ comic nature contrast with the solemn titles, such as “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”Williams’s “Incidental Music for Yo-Yo Ma” (1979, 10 serigraphs) is a series of music sheets which, instead of notes, picture abstract lines. With each serigraph, the lines thicken and multiply, creating an intricate and almost illegible design. The composition was interpreted by the cellist in a musical performance.Williams’s art is characterized by fluid forms and ideas. He uses concrete poetry and typography to examine the relationship between signs and their meaning (or lack thereof).Emmett Williams (Projects with Ay-O and Yo-Yo Ma) runs at Barbara Wien Gallery, Schöneberger Ufer 65, 10785 Berlin through April 16, 2016. Information: http://www.barbarawien.de/
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