ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how artists around the world shared concerns about the meaning of artists’ work in the postwar period and the role artists played in social change. The key groups here are Zero, based in the Rhineland, and the Fluxus network with its connections across North America, East Asia, and northern Europe. In a meaningful coincidence, artists around the world were interrogating the notions of work and production. At the same time that this chapter addresses global issues, it also looks at national pasts and the importance of local interpretation. Even imported art forms such as pop art from the United States shifted in meaning when relocated from North America to Germany. New York may have dominated postwar art markets but American culture never dictated European art or its interpretation.
