Henry Flynt

Henry Flynt (born 1940 in Greensboro, North Carolina) is an American philosopher, musician, writer, activist, and artist connected to the 1960s New York avant-garde.

At Harvard, Flynt was introduced to jazz and the "New Music" of John Cage by graduate students Christian Wolff and Frederic Rzewski, and he also discovered country blues music through Samuel Charters's 1959 book on the subject at this time.

He coined the term "concept art" in the early 1960s, during which time he was associated with figures in the Fluxus scene.

He soon dropped out and visited New York in 1960, where through Conrad he was introduced to La Monte Young and other figures in the city's avant-garde scene.

Young would dedicate his 1960 composition "X for Henry Flynt" to him.

In 1960 and 1961, Flynt took part in the monthly concert series held at Yoko Ono's Chambers Street loft.

Flynt’s work developed from what he called "cognitive nihilism", a concept he first announced in the 1960 and 1961 drafts of a paper called Philosophy Proper. The concept derives from insights about the vulnerabilities of logic and mathematics, and aims to turn the principles of scientific positivism and analytical philosophy against themselves.

Embracing Rudolf Carnap's empiricism and his positivist critique of metaphysics, Flynt concluded that science itself did not satisfy the syntactical criteria for empirical claims; he therefore set about developing a "radical empiricism" (or "radical unbelief") which undermined scientific systematization and much "avant-garde" art.

In the mid 1960s, Flynt converted himself to Marxism, joining the Workers World Party, and published the article "Communists Must Give Revolutionary Leadership in Culture" in collaboration with George Maciunas, criticizing the white supremacist cultural touchstones of the left-wing tradition and championing African-American music.

Flynt performed duets with La Monte Young in the 1960s, but recordings of these performances were rejected by Mainstream Records employee Earle Brown as being too unconventional for a classical label.

In an early 1960s conversation with John Cage, Flynt announced his intention to abandon "serious" modern composition and pursue music in the style of rock artists like Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, to which Cage expressed confusion.

In 1961, Flynt coined the term "concept art" in the proto-Fluxus book An Anthology of Chance Operations (co-published by Jackson Mac Low and La Monte Young), released in 1963, alongside works by Fluxus artists such as George Brecht and Dick Higgins.

Flynt's concept art, he maintained, devolved from cognitive nihilism and described art in which the medium was concepts.

Drawing exclusively on the syntax of logic and mathematics, concept art was meant to surpass both mathematics and "serious" compositional practices by evacuating concepts of substance via logical paradox.

Flynt maintained that, to merit the label concept art, a work had to be a critique of logic or mathematics in which the material is a linguistic concept, a quality which he claims is absent from subsequent "conceptual art".

In 1962, Flynt began to campaign for an anti-art approach to the arts.

He advocated that avant-garde art and its institutions be superseded by the terms of veramusement and brend—neologisms meaning (approximately) pure recreation.

He later received attention for his anti-art demonstrations against New York cultural institutions in 1963 and 1964.

He moved permanently to New York in 1963.

As part of his campaign, he demonstrated against cultural institutions in New York City (such as MoMA and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts) with Tony Conrad and Jack Smith in 1963 and against the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen twice in 1964 (accusing Stockhausen of white supremacy and cultural imperialism).

Flynt read publicly from his text, From Culture to Veramusment, at Walter De Maria's loft on February 28, 1963—an act which can, in hindsight, be considered performance art.

Flynt refined these dispensations in the essay Is there language? that was published as Primary Study in 1964.

From 1964 to 1966, Flynt wrote regularly for the WWP's Workers World under the pseudonym "Harry Stone", and edited the newspaper briefly in 1965.

Flynt briefly performed violin with the Velvet Underground in 1966 as a fill-in for John Cale, and received guitar lessons from Lou Reed.

In 1966, he recorded several rehearsal demo tapes with Walter De Maria, Art Murphy, and Paul Breslin in the garage rock band the Insurrections, which were later compiled and released in 2004 on Locust Music as I Don't Wanna.

He left the party in 1967 after becoming dissatisfied with the party's support of the Soviet Union.

In 1974 and 1975, Flynt led the group Nova'Billy and recorded material spanning rock, jazz, country, and funk that was later collected on Henry Flynt & Nova'Billy (Locust, 2007).

With Catherine Christer Hennix, Flynt formed the jazz-rock group Dharma Warriors in 1978, initially including Arthur Russell on keyboard.

With the exception of the 1981 German cassette You Are My Everlovin'/Celestial Power, Flynt's recordings remained unreleased until the 21st century, via labels such as Recorded and Locust.

Purified by the Fire, recorded in December 1981, features Hennix on tamboura and Flynt on electric violin and was released in 2005 on Locust.

Flynt's first CD release was a reissue of You Are My Everlovin'/Celestial Power on Recorded (curated by John Berndt, and initiating the New American Ethnic Music series on that label), quickly followed by Spindizzy and Hillbilly Tape Music also on Recorded.

Since 1983, he has focused on philosophical writing related to nihilism, science, mathematical logic, post-capitalist economics, and personhood.

In 1987 he revived his "concept art" for tactical reasons; and spent seven years in the art world.

Henry Flynt is known for musical work that attempts to fuse hillbilly music with the avant-garde, often with him performing on violin or guitar.

Other influences included the free jazz of Ornette Coleman; rockabilly and country blues music; and the North Indian classical music he learned with singer Pandit Pran Nath.

A number of his archival musical recordings, which fuse hillbilly music with avant-garde techniques, were released in the 2000s.

He has collaborated with artists such as C.C. Hennix, La Monte Young, George Maciunas, and John Berndt.

Henry Flynt was born and raised in North Carolina, where he first studied classical violin.

He became interested in logical positivism as a teenager, and later attended Harvard University on a scholarship, where he studied mathematics alongside companions Tony Conrad and John Alten.

Dharma Warriors (Locust, 2008) showcases another meeting between Hennix & Flynt recorded in 1980 in Woodstock, New York.