Museum FLUXUS+

Museum FLUXUS+ is Potsdam's first museum of modern art, located in Potsdam, Germany. Opened in April 2008, it is dedicated to the international and intermedia Fluxus art movement and the life and work of Wolf Vostell. The museum occupies a two-storey building with approximately 1,000 square metres of exhibition space and serves as a cultural meeting point for artists and art-lovers through its permanent displays, temporary exhibitions, café, and art+life-shop.

The museum was founded by Berlin entrepreneur and art collector Heinrich Liman, who met Wolf Vostell in 1982. Through this friendship, Liman became acquainted with other first-generation Fluxus artists of the 1960s, including Benjamin Patterson, Emmett Williams, Nam June Paik, and Ben Vautier. Vernissages and Fluxus concerts were held in the premises of Liman's companies, and after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 these activities intensified, including art salons organised in vacant old-city quarters of former East Berlin. Against this background, and with the aim of contributing to social and cultural education, Liman opened the museum on 21 April 2008. To secure and further develop the institution, the non-profit Museumsstiftung Liman was established in 2017; the museum is operated by the museum FLUXUS+ gGmbH.

The collection is drawn from private holdings and comprises approximately 700 objects, of which roughly half are on permanent display. It encompasses artworks, documents, and films relating to Fluxus, as well as works by contemporaries and friends of the movement that illustrate the broader avant-garde of the second half of the twentieth century. The museum's name signals its dual focus: "Fluxus" refers to the international movement, while the "Plus" denotes the integration of artists from the wider Fluxus environment and contemporary practitioners who offer present-day interpretations of Vostell's maxim "Leben ist Kunst. Kunst ist Leben" (Life is Art. Art is Life). The holdings include paintings, sculptures, installations, drawings, videos, films, action relics, multiples, correspondence, photographs, books, catalogues, and magazines.

The ground floor presents a permanent exhibition on the international and intermedia Fluxus movement, featuring works by George Maciunas, Wolf Vostell, Emmett Williams, Benjamin Patterson, Nam June Paik, and numerous other artists of the 1960s. Works by Arman, Lebel, Christo, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Raymond Hains, Manfred Leve, and Ann Noël extend the view to the wider avant-garde. The second floor is devoted to Wolf Vostell, with works spanning 45 years of his practice from 1953 to 1998, arranged thematically to reflect his activities as Fluxus and happening artist, graphic artist, sculptor, composer, painter, and video pioneer. The museum also holds eleven works by Mary Bauermeister, whose activities significantly contributed to the development of Fluxus in Germany, including her optical boxes, prism and "dot" pictures, and stone collages. Contemporary artists Costantino Ciervo, Hella de Santarossa, Lutz Friedel, and Sebastian Heiner are represented with works that explore current interpretations of the Fluxus maxim. In 2019, the exhibition "Vostell, Fluxus, 1970" presented rare editions and multiples together with a newly established Study Library Vostell, which remains available to interested visitors by request.

The museum is situated in the Schiffbauergasse, Potsdam's new cultural centre, in a listed former hussar stable building directly on the Tiefer See. The two-storey structure provides the 1,000 square metre exhibition space, along with a large reception hall with café, art+life-shop, and an atrium used for temporary exhibitions, artist talks, performances, and musical events.

Museum FLUXUS+ is located in Potsdam, Germany, in the Schiffbauergasse cultural quarter. The museum is operated by museum FLUXUS+ gGmbH and supported by the Museumsstiftung Liman, a non-profit foundation established in 2017 to ensure its long-term preservation and development. Visitors have access to the permanent collection across two floors, temporary exhibitions and events in the atrium, and the Study Library Vostell by request.