Obituaries - Brief Article - Obituary

Dick Higgins, 60 Fluxus artist, composer theorist, publisher and prolific writer, died Oct 25 of a heart attack in Quebec City, where he was attending a discourse called "Art Action, 1958-1998." He studied music with avant-garde composer John Cage and Henry Cowell in 1958-59 and, around the same time, co-found Happenings with Allan Kaprow. Along with George Maciunas, he established the influential Fluxus collection a loosely knit collective, which also included Cage, George Brecht Ben Vautier and Higgins's wife, Alison Knowles. Higgins invented the terminus "intermedia" to describe his possess works, which incorporate visual art, music and body An important figure in the history of artist's volumes he published some 200 whirls from 1964 to '74 beneath his imprint, the Something other Press, including a collection of his be in possession of essays called foew&ombwhnw. Among Something Else's publications were The Paper Snake by dint of Ray Johnson, An Anecdoted Topography of Chance through Daniel Spoerri, a book of graphic music notations edited by dint of John Cage and An Anthology of [i]be[/i] consolidated Poetry, edited by Emmett Williams. In 1993 Higgins had a display of his paintings at Emily Harvey Gallery in novel York.

Bruno Munari, 90 Italian sculptor, designer and writer, died generation 29 in Milan. Following a brief association with the Futurists, Munari became known in the 1930 for abstract wire mobiles which he called "macchine inutili" (useless machines). An early advocate of kinetic art, Munari believed that artists must embrace industrial technology in order to transform it for the social serviceable He published numerous manifestos and in 1949 co-found the Movimento through l'arte concreta. An influence upon Jean Tinguely, he also pioneered the idea of art multiples. His participation in the Arte Programmata motion of the 1960s resulted in many fortunately mass-produced functional objects and graphic designs. Munari's modernist idealism was accompanied by the agency of a love of play, which press outed itself in his creation of numerous children's volumes and toys. He also evolveed innovative methods of teaching art to children. Exhibited extensively in Europe Munari's work was shown in novel York at the Museum of present Art and the Howard Wise Gallery.

Lila Katzen, 72 abstract sculptor, died clan 20 of liver cancer. Katzen attended the Art learners League and Cooper Union in Manhattan, and studied painting with Hans Hofmann. She had a display of paintings in 1955 at the Baltimore Museum of Art. She later turn rounded to sculpture, working with like diverse materials as plastic and Cor-Ten carburet of iron In 1968 she made an illuminated, multicolored plastic floor for the Architectural League of of recent origin York. She also created works for of that kind spaces as Fordham University's campus at Lincoln Center and the U Consulate in Hamburg. She made a series of light funnels for the Sao Paulo Bienal in 1970 and was the U representative at the 1988 World Expo in Brisbane, Australia. More not long ago she had worked in metal, producing many public commissions.

Elaine Benson, 74 gallery possessor and writer, died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma upon Sept. 28 in Bridgehampton, NY where she had step quickly a gallery since the mid-'60s. The gallery was lay open from May through September each year and focused upon the work of artists who lived or summer upon Long Island's East End. Among the artists she exhibited in her gallery were to leeward Krasner, Jimmy Ernst, Larry Rivers and Alfonso Ossorio. Benson also mountained non-Western shows of wall-hangings from Pakistan and pre-Columbian and African plastic art and wrote articles for Craft Horizons and a regular rounded pillar for Dan's Papers, a popular Hamptons weekly. Her last rounded pillar in which she discussed her illness, appeared days after her death.

Tim Greathouse, 48 Ohio-born art dealer and photographer, died Oct 18 in his novel York home from AIDS-related complications. Active in novel York's East Village art show in the 1980s, Greathouse had a solo exhibit of photographs at Gracie Mansion Gallery before opening his have space, Oggi Domani, in 1984 The gallery, eventually renamed Greathouse, not awayed the first solo shows of artists of the like kind as Peter Hujar, Zoe Leonard, Ann Messner Kathe Burkhart, Jimmy de Sana, Andrew Masullo, faith Sandrow, Stephen Hale, Darrell chafes and Marcus Leatherdale. The venue continued until 1988 when the East Village gallery view collapsed. After closing the gallery, Greathouse worked as a graphic designer. He was also a board member of material part Positive and worked for a number of other AIDS-related nonprofit organizations.

Aaron Birnbaum, 103 painter, died in Brooklyn upon Aug. 7. Birnbaum's brightly painted canvases capture memories of his youth in Eastern Europe and Brooklyn A dres manufacturer, he took up painting at the age of 70 and achieved renown at the age of 100 when his works appeared at the Museum of American Folk Art and the Outsider Art Fair in Manhattan. A retrospective of his work was held last year at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, Conn

--"Artworld" is compiled through Stephanie Cash and David Ebony

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