art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
, usually as
performance art
Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...
. The term was first used by
Allan Kaprow
Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the " Environment" and " Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well ...
during the 1950s to describe a range of art-related events.
History
Origins
Allan Kaprow
Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the " Environment" and " Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well ...
first coined the term "happening" in the spring of 1959 at an art picnic at George Segal's farm to describe the art pieces that were going on. The first appearance in print was in Kaprow's famous "Legacy of Jackson Pollock" essay that was published in 1958 but primarily written in 1956. "Happening" also appeared in print in one issue of the
Rutgers University
Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...
undergraduate literary magazine, ''Anthologist''. The form was imitated and the term was adopted by artists across the
U.S.
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, and
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
. Jack Kerouac referred to Kaprow as "The Happenings man", and an ad showing a woman floating in outer space declared, "I dreamt I was in a happening in my
Maidenform
Maidenform Brands is a manufacturer of women's underwear, founded in 1922 by seamstress Ida Rosenthal; Enid Bissett, who owned the shop that employed her; and Ida's husband, William Rosenthal. They rebelled against the flat-chested designs of t ...
brassiere".
Happenings are difficult to describe, in part because each one is unique. One definition comes from Wardrip-Fruin and Montfort in ''The New Media Reader'', "The term 'happening' has been used to describe many performances and events, organized by Allan Kaprow and others during the 1950s and 1960s, including a number of theatrical productions that were traditionally scripted and invited only limited audience interaction." Another definition is, "a purposefully composed form of theatre in which diverse alogical elements, including nonmatrixed performing, are organized in a compartmented structure". However, Canadian theatre critic and playwright
Gary Botting
Gary Norman Arthur Botting (born 19 July 1943) is a Canadian legal scholar and criminal defense lawyer as well as a poet, playwright, novelist, and critic of literature and religion, in particular Jehovah's Witnesses. The author of 40 published b ...
, who himself had "constructed" several happenings, wrote in 1972: "Happenings abandoned the matrix of story and plot for the equally complex matrix of incident and event."
Kaprow was a student of John Cage, who had experimented with "musical happenings" at
Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational ...
as early as 1952. Kaprow combined the theatrical and visual arts with discordant music. "His happenings incorporated the use of huge constructions or sculptures similar to those suggested by
Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud (; 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director. He is widely recognized as a major figure of the E ...
," wrote Botting, who also compared them to the "impermanent art" of Dada. "A happening explores negative space in the same way Cage explored silence. It is a form of symbolism: actions concerned with 'now' or fantasies derived from life, or organized structures of events appealing to archetypal symbolic associations." A "Happening" of the same performance will have different outcomes because each performance depends on the action of the audience. In New York City especially, "Happenings" became quite popular even though many had neither seen nor experienced them.
Happenings can be a form of participatory new media art, emphasizing an interaction between the performer and the audience. In his ''Water'', Robert Whitman had the performers drench each other with coloured water. "One girl squirmed between wet inner tubes, ultimately struggling through a large silver vulva."
Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...
, best known for his innovative sculptures, used a vacant house, his own store, and the parking lot of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Los Angeles for ''Injun'', ''World's Fair II'' and ''AUT OBO DYS''. The idea was to break down the fourth wall between performer and spectator; with the involvement of the spectator as performer, objective criticism is transformed into subjective support. For some happenings, everyone present is included in the making of the art and even the form of the art depends on audience engagement, for they are a key factor in where the performers' spontaneity leads.
Later happenings had no set rules, only vague guidelines that the performers follow based on surrounding props. Unlike other forms of art, happenings that allow chance to enter are ever-changing. When chance determines the path the performance will follow, there is no room for failure. As Kaprow wrote in his essay, "'Happenings' in the New York Scene", "Visitors to a Happening are now and then not sure what has taken place, when it has ended, even when things have gone 'wrong". For when something goes 'wrong', something far more 'right,' more revelatory, has many times emerged".
Kaprow's piece ''18 Happenings in 6 Parts'' (1959) is commonly cited as the first happening, although that distinction is sometimes given to a 1952 performance of '' Theater Piece No. 1'' at
Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational ...
by John Cage, one of Kaprow's teachers in the mid-1950s. Cage stood reading from a ladder,
Charles Olson
Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modern American poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York ...
read from another ladder, Robert Rauschenberg showed some of his paintings and played wax cylinders of
Édith Piaf
Édith Piaf (, , ; born Édith Giovanna Gassion, ; December 19, 1915– October 10, 1963) was a French singer, lyricist and actress. Noted as France's national chanteuse, she was one of the country's most widely known international stars.
Pia ...
on an Edison horn recorder,
David Tudor
David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music.
Life and career
Tudor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefan W ...
performed on a
prepared piano
A prepared piano is a piano that has had its sounds temporarily altered by placing bolts, screws, mutes, rubber erasers, and/or other objects on or between the strings. Its invention is usually traced to John Cage's dance music for ''Works for p ...
and
Merce Cunningham
Mercier Philip "Merce" Cunningham (April 16, 1919 – July 26, 2009) was an American dancer and choreographer who was at the forefront of American modern dance for more than 50 years. He frequently collaborated with artists of other discipl ...
danced. All these things took place at the same time, among the audience rather than on a stage. Cage credited a collaborative close reading of Antonin Artaud's ''
The Theatre and Its Double
''The Theatre and Its Double'' (''Le Théâtre et son Double'') is a collection of essays by French poet and playwright Antonin Artaud. It contains his most famous works on the theatre, including his manifestos for a Theatre of Cruelty.
Compos ...
David Tudor
David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music.
Life and career
Tudor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefan W ...
as the impetus for the event.
Happenings flourished in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Key contributors to the form included Carolee Schneemann,
Red Grooms
Red Grooms (born Charles Rogers Grooms on June 7, 1937) is an American multimedia artist best known for his colorful pop art, pop-art constructions depicting frenetic scenes of modern urban life. Grooms was given the nickname "Red" by Dominic ...
Jim Dine
Jim Dine (born June 16, 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American artist whose œuvre extends over sixty years. Dine’s work includes painting, drawing, printmaking (in many forms including lithographs, etchings, gravure, intaglio, woodcuts, l ...
''Car Crash'',
Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg (January 28, 1929 – July 18, 2022) was a Swedish-born American sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring large replicas of everyday objects. Another theme in his work is soft sculpture versions ...
, Robert Delford Brown, Lucas Samaras, and Robert Rauschenberg. Some of their work is documented in Michael Kirby's book ''Happenings'' (1966). Kaprow claimed that "some of us will become famous, and we will have proven once again that the only success occurred when there was a lack of it". In 1963
Wolf Vostell
Wolf Vostell (14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are c ...
made the happening ''TV-Burying'' at the
Yam Festival
The New Yam Festival of the Igbo people (''Orureshi in the idoma area'', Iwa ji, Iri ji or Ike ji, Otute depending on dialect) is an annual cultural festival by the Igbo people that is held at the end of the rainy season in early August.
in coproduction with the
Smolin Gallery
The Smolin Gallery was an avant-garde art venue and gallery on 57th Street in New York City, at its peak in the 1960s. It was known for its involvement with installation art, performance art and experimental art, and was best known for the Allan K ...
and in 1964 the happening ''You'' in
Great Neck, New York
Great Neck is a region on Long Island, New York, that covers a peninsula on the North Shore and includes nine villages, among them Great Neck, Great Neck Estates, Great Neck Plaza, Kings Point, and Russell Gardens, and a number of unincorpo ...
.
During the summer of 1959,
Red Grooms
Red Grooms (born Charles Rogers Grooms on June 7, 1937) is an American multimedia artist best known for his colorful pop art, pop-art constructions depicting frenetic scenes of modern urban life. Grooms was given the nickname "Red" by Dominic ...
along with others (Yvonne Andersen, Bill Barrell, Sylvia Small and Dominic Falcone) staged the non-narrative "play" ''Walking Man'', which began with construction sounds, such as sawing. Grooms recalls, "The curtains were opened by me, playing a fireman wearing a simple costume of white pants and T-shirt with a poncholike cloak and a Smokey Stoverish fireman's helmet. Bill, the 'star' in a tall hat and black overcoat, walked back and forth across the stage with great wooden gestures. Yvonne sat on the floor by a suspended fire engine. She was a blind woman with tin-foil covered glasses and cup. Sylvia played a radio and pulled on hanging junk. For the finale, I hid behind a false door and shouted pop code words. Then the cast did a wild run around and it ended".Judith Stein, "The Early Years: 1937–1960", ''Red Grooms: A Retrospective'' (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1985) Dubbing his 148 Delancey Street studio The Delancey Street Museum, Grooms staged three more happenings there, ''A Garden'', ''The Burning Building'' and ''The Magic Trainride'' (originally titled ''Fireman's Dream''). No wonder Kaprow called Grooms "a Charlie Chaplin forever dreaming about fire". On the opening night of ''The Burning Building'', Bob Thompson solicited an audience member for a light, since none of the cast had one, and this gesture of spontaneous theater recurred in eight subsequent performances.
The Japanese artist
Yayoi Kusama
is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attribute ...
staged nude happenings during the late '60s in New York City.
Difference from plays
Happenings emphasize the organic connection between art and its environment. Kaprow supports that "happenings invite us to cast aside for a moment these proper manners and partake wholly in the real nature of the art and life. It is a rough and sudden act, where one often feels "dirty", and dirt, we might begin to realize, is also organic and fertile, and everything including the visitors can grow a little into such circumstances."
Happenings have no plot or philosophy, but rather is materialized in an improvisatory fashion. There is no direction thus the outcome is unpredictable. "It is generated in action by a headful of ideas...and it frequently has words but they may or may not make literal sense. If they do, their meaning is not representational of what the whole element conveys. Hence they carry a brief, detached quality. If they do not make sense, then they are acknowledgement of the sound of the word rather than the meaning conveyed by it."
Due to the convention's nature, there is no such term as "failure" which can be applied. "For when something goes "wrong", something far more "right", more revelatory may emerge. This sort of sudden near-miracle presently is made more likely by chance procedures." As a conclusion, a happening is fresh while it lasts and cannot be reproduced.
Regarding happenings,
Red Grooms
Red Grooms (born Charles Rogers Grooms on June 7, 1937) is an American multimedia artist best known for his colorful pop art, pop-art constructions depicting frenetic scenes of modern urban life. Grooms was given the nickname "Red" by Dominic ...
has remarked, "I had the sense that I knew it was something. I knew it was something because I didn't know what it was. I think that's when you're at your best point. When you're really doing something, you're doing it all out, but you don't know what it is."
The lack of plot as well as the expected audience participation can be likened to Augusto Boal's
Theater of the Oppressed
The Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) describes theatrical forms that the Brazilian theatre practitioner Augusto Boal first elaborated in the 1970s, initially in Brazil and later in Europe. Boal was influenced by the work of the educator and theoris ...
, which also claims that "spectator is a bad word". Boal expected audience members to participate in the theater of the oppressed by becoming the actors. His goal was to allow the downtrodden to act out the forces oppressing them in order to mobilize the people into political action. Both Kaprow and Boal are reinventing theater to try to make plays more interactive and to abolish the traditional narrative form to make theater something more free-form and organic.
Contribution toward digital media
Allan Kaprow
Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the " Environment" and " Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well ...
's and other artists of the 1950s and 1960s that performed these happenings helped put "new media technology developments into context". The happenings allowed other artists to create performances that would attract attention to the issue they wanted to portray.
Around the world
In 1959 the French artist
Yves Klein
Yves Klein (; 28 April 1928 – 6 June 1962) was a French artist and an important figure in post-war European art. He was a leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by art critic Pierre Restany. Klein w ...
first performed ''
Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle
''Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle'' (Zone of immaterial pictorial sensibility) is an artist's book and performance by the French artist Yves Klein. The work involved the sale of documentation of ownership of empty space (the Immater ...
''. The work involved the sale of documentation of ownership of empty space (the Immaterial Zone), taking the form of a cheque, in exchange for
gold
Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...
; if the buyer wished, the piece could then be completed in an elaborate ritual in which the buyer would burn the cheque, and Klein would throw half of the gold into the
.Yves Klein, Stich, Cantz 1995, p. 156 The ritual would be performed in the presence of an art critic or distinguished dealer, an art museum director and at least two witnesses.
In 1960,
Jean-Jacques Lebel
Jean-Jacques Lebel (born in Paris on June 30, 1936) is a French artist. His father was also a poet, translator, poetry publisher, political activist, art collector, and art historian. Besides his heterogeneous artworks and poetry, Lebel is also k ...
oversaw and partook in the first European happening ''L'enterrement de la Chose'' in
Venice
Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...
. For his performance there – called ''Happening Funeral Ceremony of the Anti-Process'' – Lebel invited the audience to attend a ceremony in formal dress. In a decorated room within a grand residence, a draped 'cadaver' rested on a plinth which was then ritually stabbed by an 'executioner' while a 'service' was read consisting of extracts from the French décadent writer
Joris-Karl Huysmans
Charles-Marie-Georges Huysmans (, ; 5 February 1848 – 12 May 1907) was a French novelist and art critic who published his works as Joris-Karl Huysmans (, variably abbreviated as J. K. or J.-K.). He is most famous for the novel '' À rebour ...
and le Marquis de Sade. Then pall-bearers carried the coffin out into a gondola and the 'body' – which was a mechanical sculpture by
Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century. Tinguely's art ...
– was ceremonially slid into the canal.
Poet and painter
Adrian Henri
Adrian Henri (10 April 1932 – 20 December 2000) was a British poet and painter best remembered as the founder of poetry-rock group the Liverpool Scene and as one of three poets in the best-selling anthology '' The Mersey Sound'', along with ...
claimed to have organized the first happenings in England in
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...
in 1962, taking place during the Merseyside Arts Festival. The most important event in London was the Albert Hall "
International Poetry Incarnation
The International Poetry Incarnation was an event at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 11 June 1965.
Background
In May 1965, Allen Ginsberg arrived at Better Books, an independent bookstore in London's Charing Cross Road, and offered to read an ...
" on June 11, 1965, where an audience of 7,000 people witnessed and participated in performances by some of the leading ''avant-garde'' young British and American poets of the day (see
British Poetry Revival
"The British Poetry Revival" is the general name given to a loose poetry movement in Britain that took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The revival was a modernist-inspired reaction to the Movement's more conservative approach to British poetry. T ...
and
Poetry of the United States
American poetry refers to the poetry of the United States. It arose first as efforts by American colonists to add their voices to English poetry in the 17th century, well before the constitutional unification of the Thirteen Colonies (although ...
). One of the participants,
Jeff Nuttall
Jeffrey Addison Nuttall (8 July 1933 – 4 January 2004) was an English poet, publisher, actor, painter, sculptor, jazz trumpeter, anarchist and social commentator who was a key part of the British 1960s counter-culture. He was the brother of l ...
, went on to organize a number of further happenings, often working with his friend
Bob Cobbing
Bob Cobbing (30 July 1920 – 29 September 2002) was a British sound, visual, concrete and performance poet who was a central figure in the British Poetry Revival.
Early life
Cobbing was born in Enfield and grew up within the Plymouth Breth ...
,
sound poet
Sound poetry is an artistic form bridging literacy and musical composition, in which the phonetic aspects of human speech are foregrounded instead of more conventional semantic and syntax, syntactic values; "verse without words". By definition, sou ...
and
performance poet
Performance poetry is a broad term, encompassing a variety of styles and genres. In brief, it is poetry that is specifically composed for or during a performance before an audience. During the 1980s, the term came into popular usage to describe ...
.
In
Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...
in 1964,
Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking.
Ono grew up i ...
created a happening by performing her ''
Cut Piece
Yoko Ono ( ; ja, 小野 洋子, Ono Yōko, usually spelled in katakana ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking.
Ono grew up i ...
'' at the Sogetsu Art Center. She walked onto the stage draped in fabric, presented the audience with a pair of scissors, and instructed the audience to cut the fabric away gradually until the performer decided they should stop. This piece was presented again in 1966 at the ''
Destruction in Art Symposium
The Destruction in Art Symposium (a.k.a. DIAS) was a gathering of a diverse group of international artists, poets, and scientists to London from 9–12 September, 1966. Included in this number were representatives of Fluxus and other counter-cult ...
'' in London, this time allowing the cutting away of her street cloths.
In
Belgium
Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...
, the first happenings were organized around 1965–1968 in Antwerp,
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
and
Ostend
Ostend ( nl, Oostende, ; french: link=no, Ostende ; german: link=no, Ostende ; vls, Ostende) is a coastal city and municipality, located in the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerk ...
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
, the first documented happening took place in 1961, with the Dutch artist and performer
Wim T. Schippers
Willem Theodoor "Wim T." Schippers (; born 1 July 1942) is a Dutch artist, comedian, television director, and voice actor. During the 1960s, he worked mostly as a visual artist, associated with the international Fluxus-movement. As a television w ...
emptying a bottle of soda water in the North Sea near Petten. Later on, he organized random walks in the Amsterdam city centre. Provo organized happenings around the a statue ''Het Lieverdje'' on the Spui, a square in the centre of
Amsterdam
Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...
, from 1966 till 1968.
Police
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...
often raided these events.
In the 1960s
Joseph Beuys
Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
,
Wolf Vostell
Wolf Vostell (14 October 1932 – 3 April 1998) was a German painter and sculptor, considered one of the early adopters of video art and installation art and pioneer of Happenings and Fluxus. Techniques such as blurring and Dé-coll/age are c ...
,
Nam June Paik
Nam June Paik (; July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the founder of video art. He is credited with the first use (1974) of the term "electronic super h ...
,
Charlotte Moorman
Madeline Charlotte Moorman (November 18, 1933 – November 8, 1991) was an American cellist, performance artist, and advocate for avant-garde music. Referred to as the "Jeanne d'Arc of new music", she was the founder of the Annual Avant Garde Fes ...
,
Dick Higgins
Dick Higgins (15 March 1938 – 25 October 1998) was an American artist, composer, art theorist, poet, publisher, printmaker, and a co-founder of the Fluxus international artistic movement (and community). Inspired by John Cage, Higgins was an ...
, and
HA Schult
HA Schult, born Hans-Jürgen Schult on 24 June 1939 in Parchim, Mecklenburg is a German installation, happening and conceptual artist known primarily for his object and performance art and more specifically his work with garbage. He is one of ...
staged happenings in Germany.
In Canada,
Gary Botting
Gary Norman Arthur Botting (born 19 July 1943) is a Canadian legal scholar and criminal defense lawyer as well as a poet, playwright, novelist, and critic of literature and religion, in particular Jehovah's Witnesses. The author of 40 published b ...
created or "constructed" happenings between 1969 (in St. John's, Newfoundland) and 1972 (in Edmonton, Alberta), including ''The Aeolian Stringer'' in which a "captive" audience was entangled in string emanating from a vacuum cleaner as it made its rounds (similar to Kaprow's "A Spring Happening", where he used a power lawnmower and huge electric fan to similar effect); ''Zen Rock Festival'' in which the central icon was a huge rock with which the audience interacted in unpredictable ways; ''Black on Black'' held in the Edmonton Art Gallery; and "Pipe Dream," set in a men's washroom with an all-female "cast".
In
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, the
Yellow House Artist Collective The Yellow House at 57–59 Macleay Street, Potts Point, was an artists' collective that existed from 1970 through to the beginning of 1973 in Sydney, Australia. The collective was established by artist Martin Sharp on his return from London at the ...
in
Sydney
Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...
housed 24-hour happenings throughout the early 1970s.
Behind the Iron Curtain, in
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
, artist and theater director
Tadeusz Kantor
Tadeusz Kantor (6 April 1915 – 8 December 1990) was a Polish painter, assemblage and Happenings artist, set designer and theatre director. Kantor is renowned for his revolutionary theatrical performances in Poland and abroad. Laureate of ...
staged the first happenings starting in 1965. In the second half of 1970s painter and performer
Krzysztof Jung
Krzysztof Jung (11 July 1951 in Warsaw – 5 October 1998 in Warsaw) was a Polish painter, graphic artist, performer, teacher and creator of the conception of the Plastic Theatre.
Life
Studied at the Faculty of Interior Design of the Academy of ...
ran the Repassage gallery, which promoted performance art in Poland. Also, in the second half of the 1980s, a student-based happening movement
Orange Alternative
The Orange Alternative (Polish language, Polish: ''Pomarańczowa Alternatywa'') is a Polish far-left anti-communist underground movement, started in Wrocław, a city in south-west Poland and led by Waldemar Fydrych (sometimes misspelled as Frydr ...
founded by Major
Waldemar Fydrych
Waldemar Andrzej Fydrych "Major" (born April 8, 1953) is a Polish activist and founding leader of the Orange Alternative movement in Poland.
Early career
Fydrych was born in Toruń, Poland on April 8, 1953. He is a graduate of the History and Hi ...
became known for its much attended happenings (over 10 thousand participants at one time) aimed against the military regime led by General Jaruzelski and the fear blocking the Polish society ever since
martial law
Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory.
Use
Marti ...
had been imposed in December 1981.
Since 1993 the artist
Jens Galschiøt
Jens Galschiøt (born 4 June 1954) is a Danish sculptor best known for the ''Pillar of Shame''. Galschiøt moved to Odense in 1973, and in 1985 he opened a combined foundry, studio, Gallery Galschiøt and sculpture park. In 1990, Galschiøt, Er ...
has made political happenings all over the
world
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...
. In November 1993 he made the happening my inner beast where twenty sculptures were erected within 55 hours without the knowledge of the authorities all over
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
.
Pillar of Shame
''Pillar of Shame'' is a series of sculptures by Danish artist Jens Galschiøt memorialising the loss of life during specific events or caused by specific circumstances in history. Each sculpture is an tall statue of bronze, copper or concrete ...
is a series of Galschiøt's sculptures. The first was erected in
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...
on 4 June 1997, ahead of the handover from British to Chinese rule on 1 July 1997, as a protest against China's crackdown of the
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...
. On 1 May 1999, a
Pillar of Shame
''Pillar of Shame'' is a series of sculptures by Danish artist Jens Galschiøt memorialising the loss of life during specific events or caused by specific circumstances in history. Each sculpture is an tall statue of bronze, copper or concrete ...
was set up on the Zócalo in
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...
. It stood for two days in front of the Parliament to protest the oppression of the region's indigenous people.
The non-profit, artist-run organization, iKatun, artist group, The Institute of Infinitely Small Things, has reflected the use of "happenings" influence while incorporating the medium of internet. Their aim is one that "fosters public engagement in the politics of information". Their project entitled ''The International Database of Corporate Commands'' presents a scrutinizing look at the super-saturating advertisements slogans, and "commands" of companies. "The Institute for Infinitely Small Things" uses these commands to conduct research performances, performances in which we attempt to enact, as literally as possible, what the command tells us to do and where it tells us to do it. For example, a user may look at a long list of slogans on the website database section, and may submit, in text, his or her take on the most literal way to act out the slogan/ command. The iKatun team will then act out the slogan in a research-performance related way. This means of performance art draws on the collaboration of the web world and tangible reality to conduct a new, modern happening.
In 2018 the
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
Tyko Say Tyko is a given name. Notable people with the name include:
*Tyko Reinikka (1887–1964), Finnish bank director and politician
*Tyko Sallinen
Tyko Konstantin Sallinen (March 14, 1879 in Nurmes – September 18, 1955 in Helsinki) was a Finnish exp ...
and Jeff Milton. The collective has since aimed to make
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
readings more similar to language happenings which involve a variety of interdisciplinary acts and performances occurring at the same time.
Philosophy
Kaprow explains that happenings are not a new style, but a moral act, a human stand of great urgency, whose professional status as art is less critical than their certainty as an ultimate existential commitment. He argues that once artists have been recognized and paid, they also surrender to the confinement, rather the tastes of the patrons (even if that may not be the intention on both ends). "The whole situation is corrosive, neither patrons nor artists comprehend their role...and out of this hidden discomfort comes a stillborn art, tight or merely repetitive and at worst, chic." Though the we may easily blame those offering the temptation, Kaprow reminds us that it is not the publicist's moral obligation to protect the artist's freedom, and artists themselves hold the ultimate power to reject fame if they do not want its responsibilities.
Festivals as happenings
Art and music festivals play a large role in positive and successful happenings. Some of these festivals include Burning Man and
Oregon Country Fair
The Oregon Country Fair (OCF) is a nonprofit organization and an annual three-day art and music fair held outside the city limits of Veneta, Oregon, United States. Located in the Willamette Valley, the site is about west of Eugene along the ...
. Along with the famous
Allan Kaprow
Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the " Environment" and " Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well ...
, Burning Man frowns on the idea of spectators and stresses the importance of everyone being involved to create something amazing and unique. Both parties embody the "audience" and instead of creating something to show the people, the people become involved in helping create something incredible and spontaneous to the moment. Both of these events are happenings that are recreated and special each year and are always new and organic. These events draw crowds of close to 50,000 people each year and reach more people than just the attendees with their messages and ideals.
References
Further reading
* Allan Kaprow, ''Happenings in the New York Scene''. Art News, May, 1961
* Jürgen Becker und Wolf Vostell, ''Happenings, Fluxus, Pop Art, Nouveau Réalisme''. Eine Dokumentation. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 1965.
* Michael Kirby, ''Happenings: An Illustrated Anthology''. E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., New York, 1965.
* ''Allan Kaprow, Assemblage, Environments and Happenings'', 1966.
* ''Happening & Fluxus''. Materialien zusammengestellt von Hans Sohm, Kölnischer Kunstverein, 1970.
* ''Happening. Die Geschichte einer Bewegung''. Materialien zusammengestellt von Hans Sohm, Kölnischer Kunstverein, 1970.
* Wolf Vostell, ''Aktionen, Happenings und Demonstrationen seit 1965''. Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 1970, .
* Geoffrey Hendricks, ''Critical Mass: Happenings, Fluxus, Performance, Intermedia and Rutgers University'', 1958–1972. New Brunswick, N.J., Mason Gross Art Galleries, Rutgers University, 2003.
* Jeff Kelley, ''Childsplay. The Art of Allan Kaprow''. University of California Press, Berkeley, 2004, .
* ''Nie wieder störungsfrei! Aachen Avantgarde seit 1964'', Kerber Verlag, 2011, . (see )
* ''Beuys Brock Vostell. Aktion Demonstration Partizipation 1949–1983''. ZKM – Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie,
Hatje Cantz
Hatje Cantz Verlag (English: Hatje Cantz Publishing) is a German book publisher specialising in photography, art, architecture and design. It was established in 1945 by Gerd HatjeHappenings in Belgium
Ubuweb
UbuWeb is a web-based educational resource for avant-garde material available on the internet, founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives.
Philo ...