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 as their theory - wikipedia

His Happenings - some 200 of them - evolved over the years. Eventually Kaprow shifted his practice into what he called "Activities", intimately scaled pieces for one or several players, devoted to the study of normal human activity in a way congruent to ordinary life. Fluxus, performance art, and installation art were, in turn, influenced by his work - wikipedia

In 1958, Kaprow published the essay "The Legacy of Jackson Pollock". In it he demands a "concrete art" made of everyday materials such as "paint, chairs, food, electric and neon lights, smoke, water, old socks, a dog, movies." In this particular text, he uses the term "happening" for the first time stating that craftsmanship and permanence should be forgotten and perishable materials should be used in art - chello.nl

The "Happenings" first started as tightly scripted events, in which the audience and performers followed cues to experience the art.<ref name=Happenings /> To Kaprow, a Happening was "A game, an adventure, a number of activities engaged in by participants for the sake of playing." Furthermore, Kaprow says that the Happenings were "events that, put simply, happen."<!-- needs citation --> There was no structured beginning, middle, or end, and there was no distinction or hierarchy between artist and viewer. It was the viewer's reaction that decided the art piece, making each Happening a unique experience that cannot be replicated. These "Happenings" represent what we now call New Media Art. It is participatory and interactive, with the goal of tearing down the wall a.k.a. "the fourth wall" between artist and observers, so observers are not just "reading" the piece, but also interacting with it, becoming part of the art.

Kaprow's most famous happenings began around 1961 to 1962, when he would take students or friends out to a specific site to perform a small action. He gained significant attention in September 1962 for his ''Words'' performance at the Smolin Gallery. However, the ritualistic nature of his happenings is nowhere better illustrated than in ''Eat'' (1964), which took place in a cave with irregular floors criss-crossed with puddles and streams. As Canadian playwright Gary Botting described it, "The 'visitors' entered through an old door, and walked down a dark, narrow corridor and up steps to a platform illuminated by an ordinary light bulb. Girls offered red and white wine to each visitor. Apples and bunches of bananas dangled from the ceiling and a girl fried banana fritters on a hotplate. In a small cave, entered only by climbing a ladder, a performer cut, salted and distributed boiled potatoes. In a log hut, bread and jam were served. Bread was stuffed between the logs. The visitors could eat and drink at random for an hour. There was no dialogue other than that used in the interaction of the visitors with the performers." Botting noted that ''Eat'' appealed to all the senses and superadded to that was the rhythmic, repeated ticking of metronomes set at the pace of a human heartbeat, simulating ritualistic drumming. Furthermore, "The 'visitors' were involved physically (by being required to walk, eat, drink, etc.), mentally (by being required to follow directions), emotionally (by the darkness and strangeness of the interior of the cave), and mystically (by the 'mystery' of what is beyond the walls of the hut or in the inner cave." In short, Kaprow developed techniques to prompt a creative response from the audience, encouraging audience members to make their own connections between ideas and events. In his own words, "And the work itself, the action, the kind of participation, was as remote from anything artistic as the site was."Allan Kaprow He rarely recorded his Happenings which made them a one time occurrence.[ ]

Kaprow's work attempts to integrate art and life. Through Happenings, the separation between life, art, artist, and audience becomes blurred. The "Happening" allows the artist to experiment with body motion, recorded sounds, written and spoken texts, and even smells. One of his earliest "Happenings" was the "Happenings in the New York Scene," written in 1961 as the form was developing<!-- needs citation -->. Kaprow calls them unconventional theater pieces, even if they are rejected by "devotees" of theater because of their visual arts origins. These "Happenings" use disposable elements like cardboard or cans making it cheaper on Kaprow to be able to change up his art piece every time. The minute those elements break down, he can get more disposable materials together and produce another improvisational master piece. He points out that their presentations in lofts, stores, and basements widens the concept of theater by destroying the barrier between audience and play and "demonstrating the organic connection between art and its environment." There have been recreations of his pieces, such as [http://www.getty.edu/visit/events/overflow.html "Overflow" , a tribute to the original 1967 "FLUIDS" Happening.

One such work, titled ''Eighteen Happenings in Six Parts'', involved an audience moving together to experience elements such as a band playing toy instruments, a woman squeezing an orange, and painters painting.<ref name=Happenings /> His work evolved, and became less scripted and incorporated more everyday activities. Another example of a Happening he created involved bringing people into a room containing a large abundance of ice cubes, which they had to touch, causing them to melt and bringing the piece full circle.

In 2014 This Is Not A Theatre Company restaged two of Allen Kaprow's Happenings in New York City as part of the exhibit "Allen Kaprow. Other Ways" at the Fundacio Antoni Tapies in Barcelona: ''Toothbrushing Piece'' ("performed privately with friends"), and ''Pose'' ("Carrying chairs through the city. Sitting down here and there. Photographed. Pix left on the spot. Going on").

He has published extensively and was Professor Emeritus in the Visual Arts Department of the University of California, San Diego. Kaprow is also known for the idea of "un-art", found in his essays - readingbetween.org