Ben Patterson, Fluxus co-founder, dies at 82

Ben Patterson, a composer, double bassist, and visual artist who helped found the Fluxus movement, died on June 25, 2016, at his home in Wiesbaden, Germany, at age 82. Born in Pittsburgh on May 29, 1934, he earned a music degree from the University of Michigan in 1956. After playing double bass in Canadian symphony orchestras, a meeting with John Cage in Germany led him to radical new ideas. Patterson assisted George Maciunas in staging the first Fluxus Festival in Wiesbaden in 1962. Returning to New York in late 1965, he withdrew from art for two decades to work as a librarian, deputy director of New York City's Department of Cultural Affairs, and founder of a music management firm, citing financial needs for his family. He resumed exhibiting in 1988 with a solo show at Emily Harvey Gallery in New York, culminating in a 2010 retrospective at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston titled "Benjamin Patterson: Born in the State of Flux/Us."