George Brecht
| George Brecht | |
|---|---|
George Brecht, 1964, portrait by George Maciunas
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| Born |
George Ellis MacDiarmid August 27, 1926 New York, United States |
| Died | December 5, 2008 (aged 82) Cologne, Germany |
| Nationality | American |
| Education |
USP New School for Social Research |
| Notable work | Water Yam |
| Movement |
Fluxus Conceptual Art |
George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Mobil Oil. He was a key member of, and influence on, Fluxus, the international group of avant-garde artists centred on George Maciunas, having been involved with the group from the first performances in Wiesbaden 1962 until Maciunas' death in 1978.
One of the originators of 'participatory' art, in which the artwork can only be experienced by the active involvement of the viewer, he is most famous for his Event Scores such as Drip Music 1962, (see Video on YouTube) and is widely seen as an important precursor to conceptual art. He described his own art as a way of “ensuring that the details of everyday life, the random constellations of objects that surround us, stop going unnoticed.”
Brecht was born George Ellis MacDiarmid in New York, August 27, 1926. His father, also George Ellis MacDiarmid, was a professional flautist who had toured with John Philip Sousa's marching band before settling in New York to play bass flute for the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the NBC Symphony Orchestra. After his father's death from alcoholism when Brecht was 10 years old, he moved with his mother to Atlantic City, New Jersey. He enlisted for military service in 1943, and it was whilst he was stationed near the Black Forest, Germany, 1945, that he changed his surname to 'Brecht' - 'not in reference to Bertolt Brecht, but because he liked the sound of the name'.
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