The art world is notoriously known for holding a self-acclaimed hierarchy. Its pretentious views have often stunted others from creating artistic work due to financial assumptions, classism, sexism, and racism. Within the education and historical sonic teaching nearly all noted musicians are often white Western men (Beethoven, Mozart, Debussy). Collectively, as a society, women and other minority composers are regularly not recognised. The Feminist artistic activists – ‘Guerrilla Girls’ state in their art “(hip’ o-crit) An art collector who buys white male art at benefits for liberal causes, but never buys art by women or artists of colour”. Society has developed sexist assumptions about the artwork they buy, create and observe. This gatekeeping mentality is stunting the influence of new art; instead encouraging a cycle of assumptions of how we think art should look.
After the rise of Fluxus artwork in the 1960s it began to influence new artists. The goal of the Fluxus art movement was to subvert conventional ideas of art and end the elitism that was frequently connected to the art industry. In this way, Fluxus artists aimed to dismantle barriers between social classes and produce a democratic and open form of art. Examples like Yoko Ono’s 1965 ‘Cut Piece’ showed the cutting segments of her hair and clothes on stage during a live performance. This type of artwork showed a sense of accessibility towards the public eye. Anyone could create!
Overall, Fluxus began to break down the boundaries and gatekeeping the art world holds upon the outside world. It was an invitation for minorities and under privilege members of society to perform and invent new styles of work. Anyone can create and with enough context, anything can be art. We must look and listen beyond the “norm” of Western assumptions and gatekept artworkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbQBD06N0Hs