Label: Holidays Records

150部限定の小部数7インチ作!!デンマークを代表する前衛コンポーザーにして、ヨーゼフ・ボイスやナム・ジュン・パイクとも絡んだフルクサスの重要アーティストであるヘニング・クリスチャンセン。氏、初のオーディオ・ドキュメンテーション記録ブツであり、またフルクサスの歴史において最もラディカル且つコンセプチュアルな傑作の一つに数えられる1969年"ポテト・オペラ"の音盤。床に5本の平行線を引きその線に沿ってジャガイモを物理的なマーカーとして配置。観客はジャガイモを移動、また追加する事が可能であり、演奏家はその配置を空間的な楽譜として解釈し演奏し続けるといった、非常にブッ飛んだコンセプトの先鋭物件。演奏内容も非常にカッコイイです。スリーヴには現場写真が掲載されています。



Edition of 150. This ultra-limited 7" presents the first audio documentation of Henning Christiansen's Potato Opera, a conceptual masterwork that stands among the most radical gestures in Fluxus history. Originally performed in 1969 at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, this piece embodies the radical questioning of musical convention that defined the post-1968 avant-garde. The inaugural performance in 1969 brought together Henning Christiansen with artist Lene Adler Petersen and painter Ursula Reuter, who would become Christiansen's wife. The work debuted at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie, where Reuter studied in Joseph Beuys's class. The original conception employed both potatoes and coal as notational elements - materials that carried particular weight in postwar German society, where scarcity had made such everyday substances precious commodities.

Christiansen's concept is radical in its directness: five parallel lines are drawn on the floor, recreating the traditional musical staff. Rather than abstract notation, potatoes serve as physical markers along these lines, creating a spatial score that musicians must interpret sonically. The brilliance lies in the invitation extended to spectators - they can contribute their own potatoes or relocate existing ones during the performance, fundamentally altering the score in real time. This participatory chaos becomes an essential feature rather than a flaw, as the piece's structure accommodates and even celebrates unpredictability. This democratic gesture transforms Western musical notation from fixed authority into fluid collaboration. By replacing ink marks with edible, movable objects, Christiansen questions who holds compositional power and whether musical meaning resides in the score or emerges through collective action.

The connection to Beuys's classroom is crucial. All four participants - Bjørn Nørgaard, Ursula, Lene, and Henning - would subsequently move to the Danish island of Møn, where they played central roles in creating 44Møen, an important artists' colony. Potato Opera thus documents not just a single performance but the formation of a community dedicated to rethinking art's relationship to daily life. This recording captures the essence of Christiansen's vision: a work that questions fundamental assumptions about musical performance while creating genuinely compelling sonic experiences. The unruly, unpredictable nature of the performances - shaped by audience intervention and the physical properties of potatoes rolling across lines - produces music that rewards both intellectual engagement and immediate sensory pleasure. Potato Opera stands as testament to a moment when artists believed that changing the definition of art might change the world - a radical proposition that remains urgently relevant in our contemporary moment of social and aesthetic crisis.