Ben Jones reports on BALTIC’s Three Star a La Carte evening

Organized to coincide with the closure of the archival exhibition “The Dream of Fluxus,” which presented Fluxus works from the Silverman Collection, “Three Star a La Carte” aimed to show a true flavor of the diversity and absurdity of Fluxus, including pieces by well-known Fluxus artists as well as a number of local Fluxus inspired performances. Developed in collaboration with Fluxus organizer Knud Pedersen, the evening at BALTIC was a reflux to Three Star a La Carte performed in Copenhagen in the “Excellent 92” festival. Whilst the “Excellent 92” a La Carte involved a number of Fluxus artists performing, for BALTIC’s version the onus was on the diners and waiters (local artists and BALTIC gallery assistants) to perform each piece and bring a personal touch and understanding to each performance.

Presented as a restaurant, diners were given 25 Robert Watts one-dollar notes to spend on their meal, choosing an appetizer, plat de resistance and dessert from a specially curated menu. Including work by Alison Knowles, Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, George Brecht, Dick Higgins, George Maciunas, Emmett Williams, and Ben Vautier amongst others, each guest had the opportunity to interpret the work in their own way.

Willem de Ridder, the Amsterdam-based Fluxus artist, acted as Maitre d’ for the evening and presented each diner with a task at the beginning of their meal to present or perform to another guest. From the second you entered the space you became part of a performance, an event that involved performing yourself and watching your fellow diners as they presented their meal.

In one corner you could see George Brecht’s Drip Music (1959) being performed by someone climbing a ladder and pouring water into a bucket with a microphone attached so the sound was heard throughout the space. Look somewhere else you would witness 3 people silently dancing around the gallery wearing mouse masks enacting Bengt af Klintberg’s The Blind Mice Ballet, whilst others would be covering themselves and each other in thick dollops of Nivea cream for Alison Knowles’s Nivea Cream Piece for Oscar Williams (1962). Behind you someone would be climbing onto their chair following the instructions on a walkman (sticking to the Fluxus tradition of using basic technology) — Willem de Ridder’s Do The Walk — whilst their fellow diner would be throwing their chair onto the floor for the same work.

Suddenly a crash would echo around the space as building blocks, which had been meticulously placed on a grand piano, collapsed onto the floor as the lid was lifted, all part of Tomas Schmidt’s Piano Piece #1. At the same time someone would walk past letting out a scream every time their feet touched the ground, part of de Ridder’s original input to BALTIC’s a La Carte, and waiters could be heard shouting to de Ridder the next set of orders.

“Three Star a La Carte” could be seen as a chaotic mess, a vaudevillian joke, but scratch underneath this and you would witness moments of intimacy, seriousness, concentration and a delicate contemplative nature: People played chess with Yoko Ono’s all white chess board Play it by Trust (1966-1998), gently polished a violin for George Brecht’s Solo for Violin (1964), or studied and caressed a taxidermied bird by Sally Madge, Game Bird BALTIC Special. Each of these quiet moments belied the surrounding unruliness, allowing for a calm amongst the chaos.