Jock Reynolds | Determine the Values

Jock Reynolds

Determine the Values

New York City, USA: Fluxus, 1970?????

9.3 x 12 x 1.2 cm.

Edition size unknown

Jock Reynolds - who up until fairly recently served as the director of the Yale University Art Gallery for twenty years - produced three editions for Fluxus, two of which were subtitled Flux-tests. This one pits a pearl against a pebble. “The implications are obvious,” writes curator Jon Hendricks in the invaluable book Fluxus Codex. 

George Maciunas designed the label. His sketches (in the collection of MoMA) for the work are below. 

And apparently Harvard has taken to using AI to write their image descriptions now: 

"This image appears to be of an object resembling a small suitcase or briefcase, with the front panel displaying what looks like a printed graphic or possibly a collage designed to mimic the front panel of an electronic device or instrument. The design features various elements typical of electronic control panels, such as dials, gauges, and switches, all arranged in a symmetrical pattern. At the top left corner appears a rectangular screen with the word "FLUXTUS" inside, suggesting a connection to the Fluxus art movement. Beneath the central screen, the text reads "DETERMINE THE VALUES." Bottom-center of the panel shows the name "BY JOCK REYNOLDS." The overall look is industrial, possibly meant to evoke a sense of technical equipment or machinery, with the design rendered in a dotted style that is reminiscent of a halftone print. The object is closed and clasped, and the background on which it rests is not visible in the photograph."

Jock Reynolds | Potentially Dangerous Electrical Household Appliance

Jock Reynolds

Potentially Dangerous Electrical Household Appliance

New York City, USA: Fluxus, 1969

9 x 12 x 1.6 cm.

Edition size unknown

Jock Reynolds joined the inaugural class at the University of California Santa Cruz in the mid-1960s, planning to study marine biology. Artist Gurdon Woods left his position at the San Francisco Art Institute to develop the school’s arts curriculum, and encouraged Reynolds to pursue visual studies. There he encountered artists such as Willem De Kooning, Mark Rothko, and Robert Watts. Soon after, Woods applied to the Carnegie Foundation and received a large grant, allowing him to bring in visiting artists such as John Cage, Merce Cunningham, George Segal, Allan Kaprow, Dan Flavin, James Lee Byars and George Maciunas. 

"Some of these visiting artists would come for a few days to do a performance or to show films by the likes of Andy Warhol,” Reynolds recounted many years later. "Other artists stayed longer to conduct mini-seminars in which they shared their work and provided critiques to the work we students were making both individually and as a creative collective. We staged a number of Fluxus-like performances, including a hilarious Fluxus parade on the campus of U.C. San Diego in the last semester of our work with Watts." 

"I remember Maciunas brought one of his Flux briefcases out west with him and showed us what was inside: 17 boxed objects from 17 Fluxus artists, including Yoko Ono’s infamous film “Bottoms (No. 4)” and a Stan Van Der Beek film loop, among other visual oddities that fascinated us. He invited us to join him and make similar things, so I started to make a series of objects I felt were in the spirit of Fluxus and sent them off to George over the next few years, having no idea that he was actually going to produce and distribute them!”

Maciunas sketched out these ideas (see above) and produced a couple of different cover graphics for Potentially Dangerous Electrical Household Appliance. The work consists of a red hinged plastic box, containing an electrical cord with two plug ends. It shares much in common with Gábor Altorjay’s Object for Short Circuit, published the same year in Germany, by Vice-Versand (below). 

Jock Reynolds | Revealing Fact

Jock Reynolds
Revealing Fact
New York City, USA: Fluxus, 1970
1.6 x 12 x 10 cm
Edition size unknown

One of the rarer Fluxus boxed works, with reportedly few copies produced. The only existing copies that I’m aware of are at the Pompidou in France and in the Gilbert and Lila Silverman collection, now housed at the MOMA. The piece is never mentioned by Maciunas in any documented correspondence, and appears only twice in Fluxus listings; the first in 1973 and the last in 1976, when it was being offered for $8.00 a copy. Both times it is referred to as "Thermal Event".

“This work contains the attributes of a classic Fluxus work: good and evil, sex, humour, participation”.

- Jon Hendricks, Fluxus Codex