Art´s Birthday - How come?

Robert Filliou (1926 - 1987), wearing the paper hat. Taken from artwiki.fr.

Art having birthday...one doesn´t have to wonder about the fact that this date was declared to be the one by french Fluxus artist Robert Filliou. It was back in 1963 and on January the 17th Art was said to be 1,000,000 years old. Since then there have been a bunch of other artists celebrating every january the birth of the art in different ways.


Kunstradio is part of an international Art´s Birthday network and every january one can expect their radio broadcast live from several cities around the world in a kind of a big radio happening.

In 2009 Art´s Birthday features the WIENCOUVER project, from Kunstradio (Vienna) and WESTERN FRONT  plus FIRSTFLOOR from VANCOUVER.

From the website (http://kunstradio.at/HISTORY/TCOM/WC/wc-index.html), a brief history of the project by Hank Bull:
"Wiencouver is an imaginary city hanging invisible in the space between its two poles: Vienna and Vancouver. Seen from Europe, both cities are at the end of the road, one on the Pacific rim of North America, the other just 65 km from the soviet bloc. They are each on the edge of the art world's magnetic field, able to observe from a distance, and equally able to turn the other way, one toward the far east and one toward the near east. Vienna and Vancouver are wealthy, regional cities with international perspectives. This, coupled with their linguistic and historical differences, makes them ideal correspondants."