Since the late 1950s artist Henry Flynt has been challenging traditional models of music and art. Though lesser-known than other avant-garde artists of his time, Flynt is credited with coining the term "concept art." While never defining himself as a Fluxus artist, Henry is a close friend of La Monte Young, who invited him to perform at Yoko Ono’s New York loft in 1961—for the likes of modern composers John Cage and Richard Maxfield.
I recently became interested in Henry’s work after listening to a re-release of his first record, Graduation, and watching a video interview on Artforum. What is most interesting about Henry’s music is its ability to blend avant-garde styles of composition with the traditions of "lowbrow" Southern music, which renders each song accessible yet complex. I had the pleasure of interviewing Henry at the Emily Harvey Foundation in New York.
Courtney Yoshimura: Can you tell me how you started your career and moved to New York?
Henry Flynt: I got into modern music as a teenager, while I was at Harvard in the late 50s. I never took a music course but I got involved with Tony Conrad—who was also a mathematics major—and Christian Wolff.
It was a so-called "new music" scene, which basically had nothing to do with the music department. Serious modern music was treated, at that time, like a scientific field. At any rate, Tony Conrad went to California and met La Monte Young, which was absolutely crucial. La Monte and I were placed in correspondence because I had one of my compositions featured at a new music concert at Harvard. It was very post-Cage, which was scandalous at the time and got La Monte’s attention.
La Monte moved to New York in the fall of 1960 and he almost immediately began to curate concerts in Yoko Ono’s loft. He invited me down to New York to attend the first one with Terry Jennings. However, by that time I had already become disillusioned with serious modern music and had begun to listen to jazz. That evening, I decided, to hell with this modern music I’m going to play jazz piano and I started to play, but the room was so square that I couldn’t get anything going. I abandoned it in disgust and spent the rest of the evening in a completely impromptu performance. I had brought some props with me and I basically just made all of it up. I guess it was successful, at least with some people. I wanted to be considered very advanced and I guess I was by the people that I wanted to be respected by [laughs]. I mean, Cage was sitting in the front row and at one point I fanned a deck of cards and asked him to pick one and he ended up picking the Joker.
After it was all over I said to Cage, I’m through with this, the musicians I respect are Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and Cage said, Who are they? The young woman standing next to us explained who they were and he said, Well, if that’s what you like then what are you doing here? That was our first confrontation.
The other thing that Cage said was, How can you accept the division of time into equal lengths? Which is what conventional music does. Cage’s question really resonated with me. In some of my published recordings I’ve chosen to move outside of the fixed beat. I make people believe they’re listening to something in the realm of popular music but structurally it’s not at all and I hope that that deepens it.
And I understand that you were also making visual art at this time?
I wanted to try everything, so I tried my hand at visual art from around 1959 to 1961. Then, in June 1961, I used the term concept art. Now that the dust has set
I recently became interested in Henry’s work after listening to a re-release of his first record, Graduation, and watching a video interview on Artforum. What is most interesting about Henry’s music is its ability to blend avant-garde styles of composition with the traditions of "lowbrow" Southern music, which renders each song accessible yet complex. I had the pleasure of interviewing Henry at the Emily Harvey Foundation in New York.
Courtney Yoshimura: Can you tell me how you started your career and moved to New York?
Henry Flynt: I got into modern music as a teenager, while I was at Harvard in the late 50s. I never took a music course but I got involved with Tony Conrad—who was also a mathematics major—and Christian Wolff.
It was a so-called "new music" scene, which basically had nothing to do with the music department. Serious modern music was treated, at that time, like a scientific field. At any rate, Tony Conrad went to California and met La Monte Young, which was absolutely crucial. La Monte and I were placed in correspondence because I had one of my compositions featured at a new music concert at Harvard. It was very post-Cage, which was scandalous at the time and got La Monte’s attention.
La Monte moved to New York in the fall of 1960 and he almost immediately began to curate concerts in Yoko Ono’s loft. He invited me down to New York to attend the first one with Terry Jennings. However, by that time I had already become disillusioned with serious modern music and had begun to listen to jazz. That evening, I decided, to hell with this modern music I’m going to play jazz piano and I started to play, but the room was so square that I couldn’t get anything going. I abandoned it in disgust and spent the rest of the evening in a completely impromptu performance. I had brought some props with me and I basically just made all of it up. I guess it was successful, at least with some people. I wanted to be considered very advanced and I guess I was by the people that I wanted to be respected by [laughs]. I mean, Cage was sitting in the front row and at one point I fanned a deck of cards and asked him to pick one and he ended up picking the Joker.
After it was all over I said to Cage, I’m through with this, the musicians I respect are Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and Cage said, Who are they? The young woman standing next to us explained who they were and he said, Well, if that’s what you like then what are you doing here? That was our first confrontation.
The other thing that Cage said was, How can you accept the division of time into equal lengths? Which is what conventional music does. Cage’s question really resonated with me. In some of my published recordings I’ve chosen to move outside of the fixed beat. I make people believe they’re listening to something in the realm of popular music but structurally it’s not at all and I hope that that deepens it.
And I understand that you were also making visual art at this time?
I wanted to try everything, so I tried my hand at visual art from around 1959 to 1961. Then, in June 1961, I used the term concept art. Now that the dust has set