n 1974, the Basel Art Fair was more than just an exhibition: it became the stage for a new, radical, and vibrant energy. That edition marked the arrival of the Fluxus movement, with its provocative performances and spontaneous happenings – blending music, poetry, action, and audience participation.

Fluxus was born in the early 1960s, initiated by Lithuanian-American artist and theorist George Maciunas. Around him gathered international figures such as Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Joseph Beuys, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Dick Higgins, and Emmett Williams — all united by a common vision: art should break out of museums, merge with life, disrupt conventions, and become a direct, participatory, often ironic or disorienting experience. In those years, Basel was one of the movement’s vital epicenters.

Italian photographer Antonio D’Agostino was there, capturing with a keen and sensitive eye the most intense moments of that historic edition. His black-and-white photographs preserve gestures, actions, faces, and fragments of performances that today form a unique visual legacy.

This exhibition pays tribute to that unrepeatable season — a journey back to the 1970s, into the beating heart of an art that forever changed the way we see.

Curated by Carmelita Brunetti, with the collaboration of Marco Leonetti and Emiliano Zucchini, and texts by Marco Leonetti, Carmelita Brunetti, Enrico Gusella, and Emiliano Zucchini, published in the catalogue by ArtonWorld.com (Green Luxury Edition series), an international magazine of art and finance.