Джордж Брэхт және Fluxus қозғалысының бастаулары

American conceptual artist and composer (1926–2008)

Whilst working as a chemist (a job that he would keep until 1965), Brecht became increasingly interested in art that explored chance. Initially influenced by Jackson Pollock, and Robert Rauschenberg – Rauschenberg's exhibition of grass seeds, Growing Painting, 1954, left 'a significant impression on him' Artworks in this period included bed sheets stained with ink he called Chance Paintings. In 1957, Brecht sought out the artist Robert Watts, after seeing his work exhibited at Douglass College, Rutgers University, where Watts taught. This led to lunch meetings once a week for a number of years at a cafe between the university and Brecht's laboratory. Watts' colleague Allan Kaprow would also regularly attend these informal meetings. Discussions at these lunches would lead directly to the setting up of the Yam Festival, 1962–63, by Watts and Brecht, seen as one of the most important precursors to Fluxus. The meetings also led to both Brecht and Kaprow attending John Cage's class at The New School for Social Research, New York, often driving down together from New Brunswick.

Fluxus was to grow out of Maciunas' friendship with the artists centred on these classes; his conception of Fluxus was based on LEF, a communist organization set up in Russia in the 1920s to help create a new socialist culture Whilst it is unlikely Brecht agreed with Maciunas politically, he strongly agreed with the notion of the unprofessional status of the artist, the de privileging of the author, and appreciated Maciunas' ability at organization and design. 'The people in Fluxus had understood, as Brecht explained, that "concert halls, theaters, and art galleries" were "mummifying." Instead, these artists found themselves "preferring streets, homes, and railway stations " Maciunas recognized a radical political potential in all this forthrightly anti institutional production, which was an important source for his own deep commitment to it. Deploying his expertise as a professional graphic designer, Maciunas played an important role in projecting upon Fluxus whatever coherence it would later seem to have had.' Brecht would remain a prominent member of Fluxus until Maciunas' death, 1978. His work was included in each of the major Festum Fluxorum performances in Europe, 1962–63; in Fluxus 1, 1963, the first Flux Yearbook; as part of the various Fluxkits, collecting works by the group together; and was a key part of Flux performances and objects right up to the Flux Harpsichord Concert, 1976 and the last Flux Cabinets. An indication of his importance within the group is captured in a letter from Maciunas to Emmett Williams, April 1963, concerning plans Maciunas had been formulating with the marxist intellectual Henry Flynt;
'Bad news! George Brecht wants out of Fluxus, thinks Fluxus is getting too aggressive (this newsletter No.6 [Propaganda through pickets and demonstrations, sabotage and disruption]). So we will have to compromise, find a midpoint between Flynt, Paik & Brecht (if a midway can be found!) It would be very bad without Brecht. He is the best man in New York (I think) '
It was Maciunas who conceived of, and published, Water Yam, a collection of around 70 of Brecht's event scores packaged in a cardboard box published in Wiesbaden, April 1963. The first Fluxbox, it was intended to be part of a series of boxes containing the complete works of each of the members of Fluxus. In keeping with Maciunas' principles, the boxes were neither numbered or signed, and originally sold for $4. Many of his other Fluxus multiples involved absurdist puzzles which were impossible to resolve in a traditional manner, such as the Maciunas Puzzle. Drip Music was performed during Festum Fluxorum/Das Instrumentale Theater on February 2, 1963.

Maciunas' decision to picket a Stockhausen concert of Originale in August 1964 is often seen as the point at which the original, 'heroic' era of Fluxus splintered; the move seems to have alienated Brecht who, whilst not severing relations, left New York in the spring of 1965 for Europe, despite Cage allegedly spending a whole evening trying to persuade him to stay. He arrived in Rome, April 1965; from there he moved to Villefranche sur Mer, France, to start a shop, La Cédille qui Sourit, (The Cedilla That Smiles), with the French artist Robert Filliou, another member of Fluxus. The shop was intended to explore ideas about the 'obtuse relationship(s) to the institution of language' but instead ushered in what he described cheerfully as "accelerated creative inactivity".</blockquote>

In November 1969, Cornelius Cardew's Scratch Orchestra (see ) performed Realization of the Journey of the Isle of Wight Westwards by Iceberg to Tokyo Bay, a piece based on Brecht's Translocations, in London. Other imagined moves included Cuba moving alongside Miami, and Iceland moving next to Spain.

As part of his lifelong interest in Zen Buddhism, Brecht began a focused study of the Chinese language with the aim of translating the ancient text the Hsin Hsin Ming by Seng Ts'an, c600 AD, in 1976. The book, published in 1980, included three autonomous translations; an English version by Brecht, a French one by Filliou and a German version by A Fabri. It also included calligraphy by Takako Saito. Other works completed in this period include a series of Crystal Boxes, containing constantly transforming crystals; a performance and lecture 'with slides, music and fireworks' called The Chemistry of Music given at the ICA; The Brunch Museum, an exhibition dedicated to relics associated with the (fictional) character WE Brunch; a play entitled 'Silent Music' broadcast on West German Radio as part of celebrations for John Cage's 75th birthday; and 3 large sculptures, called Void Stones, commissioned for the Skulptur Projekte Münster. '[The Chemistry of Music & The Brunch Museum are two of the] three projects that Brecht called "meta creations". The first, from 1968, is a slide based lecture under the title The Chemistry of Music, which offers a critique of the lecture format as the predominating method of teaching. The second, The San Antonio Installation, is based on extracts from a popular series of French detective novels by the author San Antonio. The excerpts consist in an eccentric collection of articles (many of them found in French flea markets) which materialize details of the narrations and which present a kind of antidote against passive experience – in this case, the mechanical absorption of cheap literature. The third project is The Brunch Museum, an ingenious "exhibited object" of the life and work of W. E. Brunch, an imaginary figure of "great historical importance" invented by Brecht and the artist Stephan Kukowski (now Stephan Shakespeare). As in the case of the lecture model and novel, this project challenges institutionalized forms of representation and dissemination of information.'