Carla Liss | Sacrament Fluxkit

Carla Liss

Sacrament Fluxkit 

New York City, USA: Fluxus, c1969

Edition size unknown

A hinged plastic box housing vials of water of varying hues labeled "well," "faucet," "pool," "rain," "brook," "lake," "snow," "river" and "sea”. 

The water was intended to be housed in test tubes, though no known examples of this indicate that it was ever produced this way. Instead the water is housed in small injection bottles with metal caps and rubber diaphragms. The vials originally contained cortisone, which publisher George Maciunas injected to control his asthma. 

Maciunas also designed the box label, this being the less common of the two designs used for this work (see earlier post, here). 

Several versions of the Sacrament Fluxkit were advertised in Fluxus newsletters and price lists, varying from $6 to $30, including a wooden box containing test-tubes housing "water from many sources".

"Geoffrey Hendricks’s Flux Reliquary [below] and Carla Liss’s Sacrament Fluxkit take different approaches. Hendricks’s satirical “Flux Relics” include “Sweat of Lucifer from the heat of Hell,” “Fragment of rope by which Judas Iscariot hung himself,” “Holy Shit from diners at the Last Supper,” and other objects not that far removed from the relics found in churches around the world. Liss’s poetic Sacrament Fluxkit, on the other hand, consists of a box that is labeled on the inside lid with everyday sources of the “holy” water in the nine specimen bottles: “well, faucet, pool, rain, brook, lake, snow, river, sea.” Liss implies that it’s up to us; if we want, we can choose to have a sacramental experience each time we encounter water.”

- Fluxus and the Essential Questions of Life

The Flue Volume 1, Number 5

[Franklin Furnace]

The Flue Volume 1, Number 5

New York City, USA: Franklin Furnace, 1981

8 pp., 43 x 29 cm., newspaper

Edition size unknown

Martha Wilson founded Franklin Furnace in 1976, to serve artists working in marginalized media such as publishing and performance, which could be vulnerable to "institutional neglect, cultural bias, their ephemeral nature, or politically unpopular content."

Four years in, the Artist Run Centre began publishing a periodical called The Flue. Conceived by artist and printer Conrad Gleber, The Flue published sixteen issues between 1980 and 1989, which varied in format, including tabloids, posters, and newsletters. 

The publication served as a vehicle for promotion, political advocacy1, and helping to fulfill the mandate  of the organization, with articles on Artists’ Books, Performance Art, and Video works. It featured contributions by Jon Hendricks, Barbara Moore, Clive Philpot, Louise Lawler, Pauline Oliveros, and many others. 

A variety of artists were invited to serve as editors and designers, including Barbara Kruger, Linda Montano, Sherrie Levine, Carla Liss, and Buzz Spector. Richard McGuire served as both for this fifth issue2, which featured Laurie Anderson on the cover, promoting a concert she gave in celebration of Franklin Furnace’s fifth anniversary. 

The issue also features Diana Augaitis’ “Eastern European Bookworks,” "Sound Works 2" by Peter Frank (see last week's post, here) and descriptions of installations and performances by Al Aguilar, Sydney Blum & Janet Henry, Ronny H. Cohen, James Coleman, Toby MacLennan, Sandra McKee, Carol Meine, and Sandy Moore.

Copies of the periodical are now extremely rare. This issue can be bought for $175 US, here, or downloaded as a free PDF from Primary Information, here. As part of their ongoing efforts to make rare, archival material available, the publisher has collaborated with Franklin Furnace to digitize and disturb all sixteen issues. 

1. In her editorial, Martha Wilson notes "As I am writing this, President Reagan is dealing a heavy blow to arts funding for organizations which present avant-garde art. Below you will see my letter to the New York Times and a reply from a citizen who doesn’t realize that less than a dollar a year of tax payer’s money is devoted to the arts in America." 

2. Wilson remained as Editor-in-Chief and McGuire shared editorial duties with Lucy Evanicki. 

Carla Liss | Island Flux Souvenir

Carla Liss
Island Flux Souvenir
New York City, USA: Fluxus, 1973
10 x 12 x 2.5 cm.
Edition size unknown

Related to Travel Fluxkit (see below post), this plastic box with an offset label designed by George Maciunas contains a shell, a rock, plant fiber, a Greek stamp, a coin and a small plastic box of sand.

"The contents of this work are the souvenirs of a trip to the Greek Islands that Liss took with George Maciunas. Maciunas was fascinated with islands, and once made plans to purchase Ginger Island in the Caribbean, with the idea to make it a self-suficient collectively owned Flux-Island where artists would live and work. These plans were stymied when a group of artists were flown there with Maciunas and left instructions with the pilot to return for them in a week. There was no water on the island everyone slept naked under a tree that exuded a poisonous sap, causing rashes and fever."

- Jon Hendricks, Fluxus Codex

Carla Liss | Travel Fluxkit

Carla Liss
Travel Fluxkit
New York City, USA: Fluxus, c1973
10 x 11.9 x 1 cm.
Edition size unknown


One of the more obscure Fluxus kits (the above images are the only three I could track down), this thin plastic box contains various "obsolete tickets stubs and schedules" from a trip Liss took with Maciunas in 1972. It was offered for sale for $4.00 from 1972 to 1976 in various Fluxus newsletters, and $6.00 on a May 1976 "Flux Objects Price List".

"I came into contact with Fluxus through George Maciunas, who I met in NY in 1968. In '72 George and I travelled around the Greek Islands looking to purchase land for Fluxus. However, on arriving we learned at that time it was almost impossible for a foreigner to purchase Greek land. Out of that trip came my Flux Island Souvenir Kit and Flux Travel Kit."

- Carla Liss to Harry Ruhe, 1979

NYC Art Book Fair: 6 Decades Books

Just Another Asshole was a short-lived no wave art/music/sound art magazine from the early eighties, edited by Barbara Ess and Glenn Branca. Only 6 issues were produced, with the fifth being the best known. The only vinyl record of the series, #5 is a compilation anthology LP that was released in 1981 (with a CD reissue following 14 years later). It featured 83 artists each contributing a track less than a minute long. 

This copy, from 6 Decades Books was either signed at the launch for the project, or a true labour of love. It includes signatures by Jenny Holzer, Thurston Moore, Carla Liss, Lee Ranaldo, Dan Graham, John Howell, Peggy Katz, Amy Taubin, Sandra Seymour, Gail Vachon, Bob George, Laurie Spiegel, Barbara Ess, Rhys Chatham, Isa Genzken, Kim Gordon, Brian Doherty, Z'EV and many others.  

(for a full track listing, see earlier post, here)

Carla Liss | Sacrament Fluxkit

Carla Liss
Sacrament Fluxkit
New York City, USA: Fluxus, [circa 1969 - 1976]
White plastic box with offset-printed label, ten labeled glass vials of liquid
9.3 x 12 x 2.5 cm (variation: 6.7 x 6.7 x 5.2 cm )
Label designed by George Maciunas

Plastic box with a George Maciunas designed label, housing vials of water of varying hues labeled "well," "faucet," "pool," "rain," "brook," "lake," "snow," "river" and "sea". The vials originally contained cortisone, which Maciunas injected to control his asthma. Several versions of the Sacrament Fluxkit were advertised in Fluxus newsletters and price lists, varying from $6 to $30, and including a wooden box containing test-tubes housing "water from many sources".