ROBERT FILLIOU

Robert Filliou (born 1926 in Sauve, South of France) took part in the Résistance in 1943. After the end of World War II he moved to the U.S., worked there for the Coca-Cola company and studied economics in Los Angeles. In the early 50s he went as an economist to South Korea, by order of the U.N., to develop a plan for the recontruction of Korea. After travelling a lot all over the world he came back to France in 1959. At this time he made his first action poems and his first visual work called “L’Immortelle Mort du Monde” (which is an aleatoric theater piece in form of a text collage). In Arthur Köpckes gallery in Kopenhagen, Filliou had for the first time an exhibition in 1961. In January 1962 he founded his “Galerie Légitime”, which consisted of his hat, in which he showed his own works as well as those of his friends. With this gallery he took in the same year part on the “Festival of Misfits” in London. He participated in several Fluxus-Festivals and was of the main actors in the Festivals of Fluxus. In 1966 he wrote his “principles of poetic economy” which leaded in 1968 to his concepts of “equivalence” and “permanent creation”. After living in Düsseldorf he finally went back to France in 1975. Nearby Nice he declared a former oil mill to the “1st Territory of the République Géniale”. In October 1984 he lived for 3 years, 3 months and 3 days in a Buddhistic monastery where he died on December, 2 in 1987.