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Kisses Sweeter Than Wine. Öyvind Fahlström And Billy Klüver: The Swedish Neo-Avant-Garde In New York, Per Bäckström

Artl@s Bulletin

The Swedish artist Öyvind Fahlström moved to New York in 1961, where he meet the Swedish engineer Billy Klüver, and became part of the international neo-avant-garde movement. Fahlström’s performance, New York 1966, part of Klüver’s performance series 9 Evenings, is my point of departure for an analysis of the role of migration for the neo-avant-gardes in the 1960s. As intermediaries, Fahlström and Klüver brought new ideas both to New York and Stockholm, thus challenging the established view that American art was exported to the periphery. In reality, the New York art scene grew out of ideas and experiences arriving …