Robert Filliou – Work as Play, Art as Thought, 1973

Work as Play, Art as Thought proposes a different way of understanding both work and art. A photograph of Robert Filliou at a café, a sequence of hand-drawn arrows and the words “Art as Thought” chart a path across a simple wooden plank. If work becomes play, then productivity, usefulness and achievement no longer serve as the primary measures of value. If art becomes thought, then creativity is no longer confined to the studio or museum but becomes a way of engaging with everyday life. Calling himself an “animator of thought”, Filliou understood ideas as things to be set in motion rather than brought to a conclusion. The arrows extend across the plank without arriving anywhere, giving visual form to thought as a continuous process.

At the core of Robert Filliou’s practice are ideas of language, play and exchange. Trained in economics and associated with Fluxus, he conceived art as a continuous, collective activity embedded in everyday life. His work challenges conventional notions of authorship, value and production, favouring openness, humour and participation. Through gestures that blur the boundaries between art and non-art, Filliou redefined creation as an ongoing process of thinking, making and sharing, an approach that continues to shape the understanding of art as a space of exchange.