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Vilnius's Fluxus Ministry is situated in an imposing Soviet-era building that once housed the Ministry of Health, located at the far end of Gedimino Prospektas, a wide boulevard dotted with Starbucks imitations and high-street shops. The Ministry was instigated by the former mayor of Vilnius and current member of the Lithuanian parliament, Arruras Zuokas, who is best known for heading somewhat Utopian, often tourist-oriented developments. Apparently much loved by the younger generation in Lithuania, Zuokas is equally reviled for alleged low-level corruption and the perceived squandering of public money by others. At the opening of the Fluxus Ministry on 29 April this year, attended by over 3,000 people, Zuokas declared that he has 'no doubt that Vilnius will succeed in its mission of becoming the global centre of Fluxus for the 21st century', reviving the movement in homage to its founder George Maciunas, perhaps Lithuania's best known ex-pat artist of the 20th century.
Born in Lithuania's second major city Kaunas, Madunas moved first to Germany at 13 and then later to New York, where from 1966 he began to buy up old manufacturing lofts in SoHo, transforming them into 'Flux Houses'. As Sharon Zukin noted in her study of art and real estate L·^ Living, Madunas galvanised a group of artists to begin living and working in these housing co-ops, transforming SoHo into an artists' community and thus unwittingly giving birth to its subsequent gentrification and realestate boom. Vilnius's Fluxus Ministry is akin to its predecessor in centring its aims on supporting a creative...