Alice Hutchins (Van Nuys, California, 1916 – Santa Barbara, 2009) lived since 1950 in Paris, where she worked as a painter.
In 1967 she started to work with magnets. Her ‘Jewelry Fluxkit’, a plastic box containing hardware parts and a magnet, was published as a Fluxus Edition.
In 1968/69 she travelled and worked for half of each year in New York. ‘I owe a great deal to the writing and works of Merce Cunningham and George Brecht.’ (cat. The Fluxshoe, BGP, Devon, 1972.)
Trying to find George Brecht, whose Water Yam ‘events’ impressed her very much, she met Dick Higgins and other Happening and Fluxus artists.
In 1981 her ‘optional art objects’ (Al Hansen) were presented at Higgins’ Something Else Gallery.
Hutchins also worked in the field of visual poetry. One of her works is a small box, filled with postcards that she manufactured in various ways using type.
