La Monte Thornton Young is an American composer, musician, and performance artist recognized as one of the first American minimalist composers and a central figure in Fluxus and post-war avant-garde music. He is best known for his exploration of sustained tones, beginning with his 1958 composition Trio for Strings. His compositions have called into question the nature and definition of music, most prominently in the text scores of his Compositions 1960. While few of his recordings remain in print, his work has inspired prominent musicians across various genres, including avant-garde, rock, and ambient music.
Young in c. 1961
Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus is known for experimental contributions to different artistic media and disciplines and for generating new art forms. These art forms include intermedia, a term coined by Fluxus artist Dick Higgins; conceptual art, first developed by Henry Flynt, an artist contentiously associated with Fluxus; and video art, first pioneered by Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell. Dutch gallerist and art critic Harry Ruhé describes Fluxus as "the most radical and experimental art movement of the sixties".
Fluxus Manifesto, 1963, by George Maciunas
Flux Year Box 2, c. 1967, a Flux box edited and produced by George Maciunas, containing works by many early Fluxus artists
Piano Activities, by Philip Corner, as performed in Wiesbaden, 1962, by (l–r) Emmett Williams, Wolf Vostell, Nam June Paik, Dick Higgins, Benjamin Patterson and George Maciunas
Willem de Ridder's Mail Order FluxShop, Amsterdam, with Dorothea Meijer, winter 1964–65