Ben Patterson (1934 Pittsburgh - 2016 Wiesbaden)

Benjamin Patterson was a musician, artist, and founding member of Fluxus, which emerged in the early 1960s. His highly influential practice, combining music, visual arts and performance, is aligned with the Fluxus ethos, which challenged traditional artmaking modes. Its members pursued a variety of experimental practices, foregrounding the use of everyday materials and gestures, live action and chance. Patterson is well known for his concept of "action as composition," in which sound becomes the result of simple and complex actions that he famously annotated in the format of a musical score. Frogs hopped into his artistic work at a very early stage and have taken their prominent role ever since then. Throughout his career, Patterson has explored the notion of systems in art, music and text. Like many of his Fluxus peers, he has also complicated and enriched the relationship between audience and performer, creating situations that demand direct engagement. Much of Patterson's work is tinged with tongue-in-cheek humor that reveals his Fluxus roots.