Movies: Dick Higgins

On March 24, 1979, The Kitchen presented a two-part program dedicated to the work of various Fluxus artists. The programming began with the premiere of Alison Knowles’s “Natural Assemblages and the True Crow.” For the piece, Knowles engaged in a dial...

The film portrays a group of artists who since the early 1960s have completely disrupted our ideas of what art can be. In large part filmed in Venice in 1990, when many of the original Fluxus artists met to hold a large exhibition almost 30 years aft...

Higgins’s only feature-length film, THE FLAMING CITY, explores the dichotomy between the lifestyle of Higgins and his artist friends in SoHo, which was viewed as a threat to middle class American values, and Higgins’s well-heeled upbringing. The film...

A comprehensive documentation of new art movements from 1945 to the present day. Beginning with the "Internationale Situationniste," "Cobra," "Spur," and "Wiener Gruppe" groups in Europe, and moving on to the international Happening and Fluxus moveme...

"Face Smiling. Hammering a brick. CU of an ear (moving?). Face twitching. Dancing on one leg. Rolls, twitches on the floor. Boxes the wall."...

This film belongs to Higgins' 'hard series', meaning that the formal structure is relatively inflexible. The colors shift from the normal to their complements, producing extraordinary after-images, and this is done to a pulse by means of over 3000 sp...

A double murder is committed–presumably. A sleepwalker is unaware where she is going or what the consequences of her actions are–presumably. The law investigates–presumably. Nothing is solved, or is it? Is there a suicide at the end? More mysterious ...

A satire on business. We see a distinguished business man speaking gibberish, telephone ploes being ripped down to make room for beautiful farmlands, prices tumbling. I hoped the end would justify the means. –D. H....

Featuring home movie footage shot by Higgins and other material derived from his father, MEN & WOMEN & BELLS includes the recurring sound of the bells of Rostov-on-Don in Russia, lending it a mournful quality. — Anthology Film Archives...

"INVOCATION is Higgins' Satie movie... the purest attempt to clear art from any or all historical, esthetic, thematic, ornamental claptrap to regain the lost-eye consciousness." - Jonas Mekas...

The scenario for what might have been quite a beautiful films is projected as a text. In between the blocks of text, two small girls romp, as if from another movie altogether. –D. H....