George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus, by Jeff Perkins
Los Angeles Filmforum presents
George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus, by Jeff Perkins
With Jeff Perkins in person!
Sunday August 2, 2026, 2:00 pm
At 2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd. Los Angeles CA 90057
NOTE THE EARLIER SHOW TIME
In conjunction with the exhibition Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind, on view May 23 - October 11 at The Broad
Tickets:
https://link.dice.fm/V7209a2392d1
George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus is a feature documentary as mercurial as its subject, George Maciunas, impresario of the international avant-garde art movement Fluxus (1962-78). Fascinatingly contradictory interviews with artists, including Yoko Ono, Jonas Mekas, and Nam June Paik, and inventive sound and screen design, shape this rich portrait of a visionary artist. Dedicated to cooperative methods and expanded processes, everything could be Fluxus: kits, shops, festivals, islands, weddings, food, or Flux Lofts–the first network of artist-owned lofts in SoHo, New York. The iconoclastic Maciunas and the spirit of Fluxus provoke questions still critical to artists working today.
Trailer: https://vimeo.com/401400889
Jeffrey Perkins is a New-York based artist and filmmaker. His adventures with the intellectual avant-garde began in 1963 in Tokyo, while stationed by the US Air Force in Japan; there he met Yoko Ono, which then led to introductions to many artists and composers active at the time. In 1966 in NYC he shared 2 apartments with Yoko Ono, Tony Cox & their daughter Kyoko Ono-Cox. Yoko introduced Jeff to George Maciunas at his Soho apartment, and he then collaborated on performance projects and events in New York during 1966 with Yoko & George Maciunas. After moving to Los Angeles in 1967, Perkins managed Cinematheque 16 experimental film theater on Sunset Blvd, and co-founded the psychedelic light-show group Single Wing Turquoise Bird, which performed with The Velvet Underground, The Yardbirds, Cream, Sly and the Family Stone, among others, for Pinnacle Productions at the Shrine Hall. In 1981 Perkins returned to New York, where for the next twenty years he drove a taxi in order to support his artistic endeavors. Perkins has traveled worldwide to present his visual, audio, and conceptual works. Nicknamed “the Fluxus cabdriver” by Nam June Paik, Perkins knows almost everything about Fluxus first-hand. He has done performances and films for Yoko Ono, Tony Cox, Alison Knowles, and George Maciunas, to name a few. Recognized for his audio interviews as a taxi driver (“Movies for the Blind”), in 2008 he released a documentary film, The Painter Sam Francis, a portrait of the abstract painter, and in 2018 he finished his epic documentary portrait George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus. - Weronika Trojańska
Flux Film No 22: (Shout)
Flux Film No 22: (Shout)
By Jeff Perkins
1966, 16mm, b&w, silent, 2:10
“In this performance filmed by Yoko Ono, two men, Anthony Cox and Jeff Perkins himself, face each other in profile and scream at one another. The film, however, is silent. This discrepancy between the film’s title and the absence of sound engenders a comic situation. Beyond the presumed objectivity of the frame – Shout resembles a scientific film in which the phenomenon is observed behind a pane of glass – there is also a significant allusion to early cinema in the style of burlesque comedies with their physical, almost childish, humor that George Maciunas particularly enjoyed. Deprived of their howling sound, the body movements are magnified and decontextualized; the result seems stretched out in time, as if in slow motion.” -- Maeva Aubert, Flux Film DVD Notes, Re:Voir
George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus
George: The Story of George Maciunas and Fluxus
A Film by Jeff Perkins
2018, digital, color, sound, 128 minutes.
L.A. Premiere!
“Mr. Perkins livens up what could have been a dull talking-heads presentation with vortex-like editing, often dividing the screen into multiple panels and making inventive use of sound design. There is no shortage of vintage Fluxus footage or arcana to draw on; the interviews, old and new, with Maciunas associates like Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik and Henry Flynt are informative and often fascinatingly contradictory.
“Although Mr. Maciunas’s art work and performances have had some lasting influence — Sonic Youth performed a rendition of a piece in which a piano is destroyed — “George” leaves the impression that one enduring legacy may also be in real estate. He brought together colleagues to purchase property south of Houston Street, founding what has been reported as the first artist cooperative there. The experimental playwright Richard Foreman is blunt: “As far as I’m concerned, he created SoHo,” he says.
“At two hours, the documentary is overstuffed, possibly by design. But it matches a kaleidoscopic form to a kaleidoscopic life story, honoring its subject without simplifying him.” - Ben Kenigsberg, New York Times review, Feb 19, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/movies/george-documentary-review-fluxus.html