Milan Knížák

Milan Knížák working on Lenin for the Fluxus pavilion at the Venice Biennale, 1990. Photo: Marie Knížáková
Born	April 19, 1940(1940-04-19) Plzeň, Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia

Artist and musician. Born 1940 in Plzeň.

He commenced his career as an artist in 1957. In the early 1960s he began creating what he called Ceremonies and Demonstrations, happening-like events that were often performed in the streets. By 1962–1963 he had become part of the art group Aktuální umění [Actual Art] ("Aktual" from 1966 on), with Jan Mach, Vít Mach, Sonia Švecová, Jan Trtílek and Robert Wittmann. Aktual staged numerous participatory actions, e.g. A Walk around Novy Svět and the Demonstration of One (both 1964). The group also published small editions of handbills, samizdat magazines, and created objects. Aktual called for the complete unity of art and life and focused on people, their actions and awakening people’s awareness.

In 1965 Knížák began creating broken music by destroying the vinyl records. He cut the records and glued bits of them together, scratched, sellotaped, and generally messed with them, playing them and recording the results. Some of these are collected on several editions of Broken Music.

Knížák’s contact to Fluxus came about in 1965 through the mediation of the Czech critic Jindřich Chalupecký. Knížák was soon promoted to “Director Fluxus East” by George Maciunas – and this although his attitude to Fluxus remained critical, since he found many actions and their setting in a classical stage context artificial. In October 1966, Knížák organised the Fluxus concert in Prague, in which he appeared together with Ben Vautier, Jeff Berner, Serge Oldenbourg, Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles. Maciunas already invited Knížák to the USA in 1965, but it was not until 1968 that he managed to obtain a visa. In New York, he participated in the Fluxus events taking place there; in New Brunswick he realised his Lying Ceremony and in New York the Difficult Ceremony. Maciunas prepared the publication of Knížák’s collected works as a Fluxus Edition, but it was never published.

In 1970 he returned to Czechoslovakia. Always under police surveillance, he was also arrested on occasion. He received a fellowship from the DAAD Artists’ Programme and came to Berlin in 1979, after which he was frequently represented at exhibitions in Germany.

Since 1990, Knížák has been teaching intermedia at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, served as the rector of the Academy (1990-97), and as director of the National Gallery in Prague (1999-2011).

Works

Broken Music

Broken Music (1979)

Composition No. 1, 18'56" OGG
Composition No. 2, 3'27" OGG
Composition No. 3, 4'25" OGG
Composition No. 4, 10'23" OGG
Composition No. 5, 13'52" OGG
Originally released in 1979 on Multhipla Records.
Reissue released on Ampersand ‎– ampere12, CD, 2002
Curated and Assembled By – Walter Marchetti
Reissue Direction – Dawson Prater
Edited at Harpo's Bazaar (Bologna, Italy)

Broken Music (1983)

Untitled (Side A), 28'35" OGG
Untitled (Side B), 32'04" OGG
Label – Edition Hundertmark, 1983
Format – Carton box including a C-60 cassette of Knizak's Destroyed Music, signed and hand-numbered 1 to 40, a partially melted, hand-painted and signed 7" record, and 2 sheets of information text.
Cassette was also released separately in an edition of 60, signed but unnumbered copies.

Broken Music (1989)

Details, 28'35" OGG
Label – Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD, 1989
Format – Flexi-disc, Single Sided, 33 ⅓ RPM

See also

• Czech Republic#Electroacoustic and experimental music, sound art

External links

• Home page
• Knížák at Artlist.cz
• Knížák at Fluxus East
• Knížák at Wikipedia