© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/© Robert Watts Estate, NYC/photo Bruce M. White
1962–63. Yam Festival Press, Metuchen, NJ
Yam Festival Newspaper
Robert Watts, American, 1923–1988
George Brecht, American, 1926 - 2008
© 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn/© Robert Watts Estate, NYC/photo Bruce M. White
1962–63. Yam Festival Press, Metuchen, NJ
Yam Festival Newspaper
Robert Watts, American, 1923–1988
George Brecht, American, 1926 - 2008
Robert Watts, American, 1923–1988
George Brecht, American, 1926 - 2008

Yam Festival Newspaper, 1962–63. Yam Festival Press, Metuchen, NJ

Offset printing, black in on pink paper stock
74 x 15.3 cm. (29 1/8 x 6 in.)
Courtesy of the Robert Watts Estate, New York
Like other Fluxus artists, Brecht and Watts relished the opportunity to publicize their activities. In the case of Yam Festival, a yearlong festival of exhibitions and performances that took place in New Jersey and New York, they did so widely and ingeniously. Yam Festival Newspaper represents one such effort. Instead of presenting information in a straightforward manner, however, the artists create an unruly collage of verbal and visual elements. Newspaper includes everything from poems, event scores, and advertisements for Fluxus-related publications to quotations, glossaries, "wanted" ads, crossword puzzles, and notices for drawing contests. Only some of this material is genuine; much of it is fictional, and all of it is funny or absurd.

Cooperation and Contradiction