PERFORMANCE ART

Performance is a genre in which art is presented "live," usually by the artist but sometimes with
collaborators or performers. It has had a role in avant-garde art throughout the 20th century,
playing an important part in anarchic movements such as Futurism and Dada. Indeed,
whenever artists have become discontented with conventional forms of art, such as painting
and traditional modes of sculpture, they have often turned to performance as a means to
rejuvenate their work. The most significant flourishing of performance art took place following
the decline of modernism and Abstract Expressionism in the 1960s, and it found exponents
across the world. Performance art of this period was particularly focused on the body, and is
often referred to as Body art. This reflects the period's so-called "dematerialization of the art
object," and the flight from traditional media. It also reflects the political ferment of the time:
the rise of feminism, which encouraged thought about the division between the personal
and political and anti-war activism, which supplied models for politicized art "actions."
Although the concerns of performance artists have changed since the 1960s, the genre has
remained a constant presence, and has largely been welcomed into the conventional
museums and galleries from which it was once excluded.

Key Points

• The foremost purpose of performance art has almost always been to challenge the
conventions of traditional forms of visual art such as painting and sculpture. When
these modes no longer seem to answer artists' needs - when they seem too
conservative, or too enmeshed in the traditional art world and too distant from
ordinary people - artists have often turned to performance in order to find new
audiences and test new ideas.
• Performance art borrows styles and ideas from other forms of art, or sometimes from
other forms of activity not associated with art, like ritual, or work-like tasks. If cabaret
and vaudeville inspired aspects of Dada performance, this reflects Dada's desire to
embrace popular art forms and mass cultural modes of address. More recently,
performance artists have borrowed from dance, and even sport.
• Some varieties of performance from the post-war period are commonly described as
"actions." German artists like Joseph Beuys preferred this term because it distinguished
art performance from the more conventional kinds of entertainment found in theatre.
But the term also reflects a strain of American performance art that could be said to
emerge out of a reinterpretation of "action painting," in which the object of art is no
longer paint on canvas, but something else - often the artist's own body.
• The focus on the body in so much performance art of the 1960s has sometimes been
seen as a consequence of the crisis in conventional media. Faith having collapsed in
media such as painting, creativity ricocheted back on to the artist's own body. Some
saw this as a liberation, part of the period's expansion of materials and media. Others
wondered if it reflected a more fundamental crisis in the institution of art itself, a sign
that art was exhausting its resources.
• The performance art of the 1960s can be seen as just one of the many disparate
trends that developed in the wake of Minimalism. Seen in this way, it is an aspect of

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 Post-Minimalism, and it could be seen to share qualities of Process art, another
tendency central to that umbrella style. If Process art focused attention on the
techniques and materials of art production, so did aspects of performance. Process
art was also often intrigued by the possibilities of mundane and repetitive activities;
similarly, many performance artists were attracted to task-based activities that were
very foreign to the highly choreographed and ritualized performances in traditional
theatre or dance.

Beginnings

Twentieth century performance art has its roots in early avant-gardes such as Futurism, Dada
and Surrealism. Before the Italian Futurists ever exhibited any paintings they held a series of
evening performances during which they read their manifestoes. And, similarly, the Dada
movement was ushered into existence by a series of events at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich.
These movements often orchestrated events in theatres that borrowed from the styles and
conventions of vaudeville and political rallies. However, they generally did so in order to
address themes that were current in the sphere of visual art; for instance, the very humorous
performances of the Dada group served to express their distaste for rationalism, a current of
thought that had recently surged from the Cubism movement.

The origins of the post-war performance art movement can be traced to several places. The
presence of composer John Cage and dancer Merce Cunningham at North Carolina's Black
Mountain College did much to foster performance at this most unconventional art institution.
It also inspired Robert Rauschenberg, who would become heavily involved with the Merce
Cunningham Dance Company. Cage's teaching in New York also shaped the work of artists
such as George Brecht and Allan Kaprow, who formed part of the impetus behind the Fluxus
movement and the birth of "happenings," both of which placed performance at the heart of
their activities.

In the late 1950s, performance art in Europe began to develop alongside the work being
done in the United States. Still affected by the fallout from World War II, many European artists
were frustrated by the apolitical nature of Abstract Expressionism, the prevalent movement
of the time. They looked for new styles of art that were bold and challenging. Fluxus provided
one important focus for performance art in Europe, attracting artists such as Joseph Beuys.

Other manifestations included the work of the Viennese Actionists, which characterized the
movement as "not only a form of art, but above all an existential attitude." The Actionists'
work borrowed some ideas from American action painting, but transformed them into a
highly ritualistic theatre that sought to challenge the perceived historical amnesia and return
to normalcy in a country that had so recently been an ally of Adolph Hitler. The Actionists
also protested governmental surveillance and restrictions of movement and speech, and
their extreme performances led to their arrest several times.

In Britain, artists such as Gustav Metzger pioneered an approach described as "Auto-

Destructive art," in which objects were violently destroyed in public performances that
reflected on the Cold War and the threat of nuclear destruction.

2
By the early 1960s, major European cities such as Amsterdam, Cologne, Dusseldorf and Paris
were the sites of ambitious performance gatherings.

American performance art in the 1960s and 1970s coincided with the rise of second-wave
feminism. Women artists turned to performance as a confrontational new medium that
encouraged the release of frustrations at social injustice and the ownership of discussion
about women's sexuality. This permitted rage, lust, and self-expression in art by women,
allowing them to speak and be heard as never before. Women performers seized an
opportune moment to build performance art for themselves, rather than breaking into other
already established, male-dominated forms. They frequently dealt with issues that had not
yet been undertaken by their male counterparts, bringing fresh perspectives to art. For
example, Hannah Wilke criticized Christianity's traditional suppression of women in Super-t-art
(1974), where she represented herself as a female Christ. During and since the beginning of
the movement, women have made up a large percentage of performance artists.

The Vietnam War also provided significant material for performance artists during this era.
Artists such as Chris Burden and Joseph Beuys, both of whom made work in the early 1970s,
rejected US imperialism and questioned political motivations. Performance art also
developed a major presence in Latin America, where it played a role in the Neoconcretist
movement, and in Asia, where it was important for Japan's Gutai movement.

Concepts and Styles

Instead of seeking entertainment, the audience for performance art often expects to be
challenged and provoked. Viewers may be asked to question their own definitions of art,
and not always in a comfortable or pleasant manner. As regards style, many performance
artists do not easily fall into any identified stylistic category, and many more still refuse their
work to be categorized into any specific sub-style. The movement produced a variety of
common and overlapping approaches, which might be identified as actions, Body art,
happenings, Endurance art, and ritual. Although all these can be described and
generalized, their definitions, like the constituents of performance art as a movement, are
continuously evolving. And some artists have made work that falls into different categories.
Yves Klein, for instance, staged some performances that relate to the Fluxus movement, and
have qualities of rituals and happenings, yet his Anthropometries (1958) also relate to Body
art.

Action

The term "action" constitutes one of the earliest styles within modern performance art. In part,
it serves to distinguish the performance from traditional forms of entertainment, but it also
highlights an aspect of the way performers viewed their activities. Some saw their
performances as related to the kind of dramatic encounter between painter and painting
that critic Harold Rosenberg talked of in his essay 'The American Action Painters' (1952).
Others liked the word action for its open-endedness, its suggestion than any kind of activity
could constitute a performance. For example, early conceptual actions by Yoko Ono
consisted of a set of proposals that the participant could undertake, such as, "draw an
imaginary map...go walking on an actual street according to the map..."

3
Body Art

Body art was central to the performance art of the 1960s, and the terms are sometimes used
interchangeably in this context. It encompasses artists who position themselves as living
sculpture as well as those who use their bodies as a canvas. However, the definition of
whether an act is Body art or not is often up to the artist. For example, as a performance
artist that used cosmetic surgery, Orlan is deeply involved in the expression of the body, yet
she describes her work as "carnal art": she does not use her body to make art, her body is art.

Happenings

Happenings were a popular mode of performance that arose in the 1960s, and which took
place in all kinds of unconventional venues. Heavily influenced by Dada, they required a
more active participation from viewers/spectators, and were often characterized by an
improvisational attitude. While certain aspects of the performance were generally planned,
the transitory and improvisational nature of the event attempted to stimulate a critical
consciousness in the viewer and to challenge the notion that art must reside in a static
object.

Endurance

A number of prominent performance artists have made endurance an important part of

their practice. They may involve themselves in rituals that border on torture or abuse, yet the
purpose is less to test what the artist can survive than to explore such issues as human
tenacity, determination, and patience. Taiwanese artist Tehching Hsieh has been one
important exponent of this approach; Marina Abramovic offers other examples. Allan
Kaprow was perhaps the most influential figure in the happenings movement, though others
who were involved include Claes Oldenburg, who would later be associated with Pop art.

Ritual

Ritual has often been an important part of some performance artists' work. For example,
Marina Abramovic has used ritual in much of her work, making her performances seem
quasi-religious. This demonstrates that while some aspects of the performance art movement
have been aimed at demystifying art, bringing it closer to the realms of everyday life, some
elements in the movement have sought to use it as a vehicle for re-mystifying art, returning to
it some sense of the sacred that art has lost in modern times.

Later Developments

After the success performance art experienced in the 1970s, it seemed that this new and
exciting movement would continue in popularity. However, the market boom of the 1980s,
and the return of painting, represented a significant challenge. Galleries and collectors now
wanted something material that could be physically bought and sold. As a result,
performance fell from favor, but it did not disappear entirely. Indeed, the American
performer Laurie Anderson rose to considerable prominence in this period with dramatic
stage shows that engaged new media and directly addressed the period's changing issues.

4
Women performance artists were particularly unwilling to give up their newfound forms of
expression, and continued to be prolific. In 1980, there was enough material to produce the
exhibition A Decade of Women's Performance Art, at the Contemporary Arts Center, New
Orleans. Organized by Mary Jane Jacob, Moira Roth, and Lucy R. Lippard, the exhibition was
a broad survey of works done in the United States during the 1970s, and included
documentations of performances in photographs and texts.

And in Eastern Europe throughout the 1980s, performance art was frequently used to express
social dissent.

Moving into the 1990s, Western countries began to embrace multiculturalism, helping to
propel Latin American performance artists to new fame. Guillermo Gomez-Pena and Tania
Bruguera were two such artists who took advantage of the new possibilities afforded by large
biennials with international reach, and they presented work about oppression, poverty, and
immigration in Cuba and Mexico. In 1991 and 1992, Next Wave festivals at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music reflected these trends with works from the American-Indian group Spider
Woman Theater, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and Urban Bush Women dance
company.

Performance art is a movement that thrives in moments of social strife and political unrest. At
the beginning of the 1990s, performance art once again grew in popularity, this time fueled
by new artists and audiences; issues of race, immigration, queer identities, and the AIDS crisis
began to be addressed. However, this work often caused controversy, indeed it came to be
at the center of the so-called Culture Wars of the 1990s, when artists Karen Finley, Tim Miller,
John Fleck and Holly Hughes passed a peer review board to receive funding from the
National Endowment for the Arts, only to have it withdrawn by the NEA on the basis of its
content, which related to sexuality.

Today's performance artists continue to employ a wide variety of mediums and styles, from
installation to painting and sculpture. British artist Tris Vonna-Michell mixes narrative,
performance and installation. Tino Seghal blends ideas borrowed from dance and politics in
performances that sometimes take the form of conversations engaged in by the audience
themselves; no conventional staged performance takes place, and no documentation
remains of the events. Seghal's solo exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York in
2010 is a sign of how close the genre has now come to being accepted by mainstream art
institutions

Important Art and Artists of Performance Art

The Anthropometries of the Blue Period (1958)
Artist: Yves Klein
Although painting sat at the center of Yves Klein's practice, his approach to it was highly
unconventional, and some critics have seen him as the paradigmatic neo-avant-garde artist
of the post-war years. He initially became famous for monochromes - in particular for
monochromes made with an intense shade of blue that Klein eventually patented. But he
was also interested in Conceptual art and performance. For the Anthropometries, he
painted actresses in blue paint and had them slather about on the floor to create body-
shaped forms. In some cases, Klein made finished paintings from these actions; at other times
he simply performed the stunt in front of finely dressed gallery audiences, and often with the

5
accompaniment of chamber music. By removing all barriers between the human and the
painting, Klein said, "[the models] became living brushes...at my direction the flesh itself
applied the color to the surface and with perfect exactness." It has been suggested that the
pictures were inspired by marks left on the ground in Hiroshima and Nagasaki following the
atomic explosions in 1945.
- Performed at Robert Godet's, Paris 1958 and at Galerie Internationale d'Art Contemporain,
Paris 1960

Cut Piece (1964)

Artist: Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono’s Cut Piece, first performed in 1964, was a direct invitation to an audience to
participate in an unveiling of the female body much as artists had been doing throughout
history. By creating this piece as a live experience, Ono hoped to erase the neutrality and
anonymity typically associated with society’s objectification of women in art. For the work,
Ono sat silent upon a stage as viewers walked up to her and cut away her clothing with a
pair of scissors. This forced people to take responsibility for their voyeurism and to reflect upon
how even passive witnessing could potentially harm the subject of perception. It was not
only a strong feminist statement about the dangers of objectification, but became an
opportunity for both artist and audience members to fill roles as both creator and artwork.
- Performed at Yamaichi Concert Hall, Kyoto, Japan 1964

Shoot (1971)
Artist: Chris Burden
In many of his early 1970s performance pieces, Burden put himself in danger, thus placing
the viewer in a difficult position, caught between a humanitarian instinct to intervene and
the taboo against touching and interacting with art pieces. To perform Shoot, Burden stood
in front of a wall while one friend shot him in the arm with a .22 long rifle, and another friend
documented the event with a camera. It was performed in front of a small, private
audience. One of Burden's most notorious and violent performances, it touches on the idea
of martyrdom, and the notion that the artist may play a role in society as a kind of
scapegoat. It might also speak to issues of gun control and, in the context of the period, the
Vietnam War.
- Performed at F Space, Santa Ana, California

Seedbed (1972)
Artist: Vito Acconci
In Seedbed, 1972 Vito Acconci laid underneath a custom made ramp that extended from
two feet up one wall of the Sonnabend Gallery and sloped down to the middle of the floor.
For eight hours a day during the course of the exhibition, Acconci laid underneath the ramp
masturbating as guest’s walked above his hidden niche. As he performed this illicit act he
would utter fantasies and obscenities toward the gallery guests into a microphone, which
became audibly piped out through the room for all to hear.

The piece placed Acconci in a position that was both public and private. It also created a
provocative intimacy between artist and audience that produced multiple levels of feeling.

6
Participants were prone to shock, discomfort, or perhaps even arousal. By positioning himself
in two roles, both as giver and receiver of pleasure, Acconci furthered body art’s dictum of
artist and artwork merging as one. He also used his sperm as a medium within the piece.
- Performed at Sonnabend Gallery in New York City 1972

Rhythm 10 (1973)
Artist: Marina Abramović
In Rhythm 10, Abramović uses a series of 20 knives to quickly stab at the spaces between her
outstretched fingers. Every time she pierces her skin, she selects another knife from those
carefully laid out in front of her. Halfway through, she begins playing a recording of the first
half of the hour-long performance, using the rhythmic beat of the knives striking the floor,
and her hand, to repeat the same movements, cutting herself at the same time. This piece
exemplifies Abramović's use of ritual in her work, and demonstrates what the artist describes
as the synchronicity between the mistakes of the past and those of the present.
- Performed at a festival in Edinburgh

Coyote: I Like America and America Likes Me (1974)

Artist: Joseph Beuys
For three consecutive days in May, 1974, Beuys enclosed himself in a gallery with a wild
coyote. Having previously announced that he would not enter the United States while the
Vietnam War proceeded, this piece was his first and only action in America, and Beuys was
ferried between the airport and the gallery in an ambulance to ensure that his feet did not
have to touch American soil. Coyote centered on ideas of America wild and tamed. In an
attempt to connect with an idea of wild, pre-colonial America, Beuys lived with a coyote for
several days, attempting to communicate with it. He organized a sequence of interactions
that would repeat for the duration of the piece, such as cloaking himself in felt and using a
cane as a "lightening rod," and following the coyote around the room, bent at the waist and
keeping the cane pointed at the coyote. Copies of The Wall Street Journal arrived daily, and
were used as a toilet by the coyote, as if to say, "everything that claims to be a part of
America is part of my territory."
- Performed at Rene Block Gallery, New York NY

Interior Scroll (1975)

Artist: Carolee Schneemann
Carolee Schneemann, who defines herself as a multi-disciplinary artist, working across a
variety of media, first made an impact in the context of feminist art. Interior Scroll is one of her
most famous works. To stage it, she smeared her nude body with paint, mounted a table,
and began adopting some of the typical poses that models strike for artists in life class. Then
she proceeded to extract a long coil of paper from her vagina, and began to read the text
written on it. It was once thought that the text derived from her response to a male
filmmaker's critique of her films (some of her most notable films of the time included imagery
of the Vietnam War, and documentation of a performance entitled Meat Joy, involving
nude bodies writhing about in meat). The filmmaker had apparently commented on her
penchant for "personal clutter...persistence of feelings...[and] primitive techniques" - in effect,

7
qualities that were deemed "feminine." But Schneemann has since said that the text came
from a letter sent to a female art critic who found her films hard to watch. By using her
physical body as both a site of performance and as the source for a text, Schneemann
refused the fetishization of the genitals.
- Performed in East Hampton, NY and at the Telluride Film Festival, Colorado

Art/Life: One Year Performance (a.k.a. Rope Piece) (4 July 1983 - 3 July 1984)
Artist: Linda Montano and Tehching Hsieh
For the length of this year long endurance piece, Montano and Hsieh were bound to each
other by an 8-foot piece of rope. They existed in the same space, but never touched. In
Hsieh's original idea, the rope represented the struggle of humans with one another and their
problems with social and physical connection. As the work evolved, the rope took on more
meanings. It controlled, yet expanded the patterns of both of the artists' lives, becoming a
visual symbol of the relationship between two people. The 365-day length of the work was
critical, as it heightened the piece from performance to life. Life and art could not be
separated within a work where living was the art. Hsieh explained that if the piece was only
one or two weeks, it would be more like a performance, but a year, "has real experience of
time and life."
- Performed in New York City

Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit Buenos Aires (1992)

Artist: Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gomez-Pena
Dressed in ridiculous costume, engaged in stereotypical "native" tasks and enclosed in a
cage, Fusco and Gomez-Pena addressed the practice of human displays, and fetishization
of the "other." Fusco wore several different looks, including hair braids, a grass skirt and a
leopard skin bra, while Gomez-Pena sported an Aztec style breastplate. The two ate
bananas, performed "native dances" and other "traditional rituals" and were led to the
bathroom by museum guards on leashes. The piece was first performed at Columbus Plaza,
Madrid, Spain, as a part of the Edge '92 Biennial, which was organized in commemoration of
Columbus's voyage to the New World. It was intended as a satirical comedy, yet half of the
viewers thought that the fictitious Amerindian specimens were real.
- Performed at Columbus Plaza, Madrid, Spain, and performed in various international
venues until 1994

HAPPENINGS
What began as a challenge to the category of "art" initiated by the Futurists and Dadaists in
the 1910s and 1920s came to fruition with the performance art movements, one branch of
which was referred to as Happenings. Happenings involved more than the detached
observation of the viewer; the artist engaged with Happenings required the viewer to
actively participate in each piece. There was not a definite or consistent style for
Happenings, as they greatly varied in size and intricacy. However, all artists staging
Happenings operated with the fundamental belief that art could be brought into the realm
of everyday life. This turn toward performance was a reaction against the long-standing

8
dominance of the technical aesthetics of Abstract Expressionism and was a new art form
that grew out of the social changes occurring in the 1950s and 1960s.

Key Ideas
• A main component of Happenings was the involvement of the viewer. Each instance
a Happening occurred the viewer was used to add in an element of chance so,
every time a piece was performed or exhibited it would never be the same as the
previous time. Unlike preceding works of art which were, by definition, static,
Happenings could evolve and provide a unique encounter for each individual who
partook in the experience.
• The concept of the ephemeral was important to Happenings, as the performance
was a temporary experience, and, as such could not be exhibited in a museum in the
traditional sense. The only artifacts remaining from original Happenings are
photographs and oral histories. This was a challenge to the art that had previously
been defined by the art object itself. Art was now defined by the action, activity,
occasion, and/or experience that constituted the Happening, which was
fundamentally fleeting and immaterial.
• The purpose of Happenings was to confront and dismantle conventional views of the
category of "art." These performances were so influential to the art world that they
raised the specter of the "death" of painting

Beginnings
Happenings were inspired by the performances of Futurists who would enact short avant-
garde plays and read their manifestoes and poetry on stage. The Futurist tendency to break
the "fourth wall" and elicit audience participation became a central idea in the Happening:
the absence of boundaries between the viewer and the artwork meant the artwork became
defined by the action as opposed to the physical, or resulting, object.
The Dadaists who declared that art did not have to meet expectations about what "art" was
supposed to look like also influenced the artists who created Happenings. Additionally, the
Dadaist use of the element of chance heavily guided the evolution of Happenings as an art
form. The ideas of composer John Cage and the teachings of instructors at Black Mountain
College including Josef and Anni Albers, Merce Cunningham, Robert
Motherwell and Buckminster Fuller further impacted the views of Happenings artists in their
belief that learning should be a continual process, with no distinction between making or
learning about art and routine aspects of day-to-day life. There was an emphasis on the
perpetual state of learning and creating; an appreciation for the prosaic, which influenced
many artists of the time, particularly Allan Kaprow, who coined the term "Happening" while
describing performance events that had taken place on George Segal's farm in 1957.
These aforementioned theories and ideas led to the creation of the Happening which was a
combination of performance and installation art. Happenings fully evolved from Kaprow's
"environments," which were installation pieces that involved large sculptural collages. After
taking John Cage's class Kaprow introduced the element of sound into his work and from
there came the first Happening by Kaprow. It was untitled and performed at Voorhees
Chapel at Douglass Campus on April 22, 1958.

"The line between the Happening and daily life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps
indistinct, as possible." -Allen Karpow.

9
Introduction
What began as a challenge to the category of "art" initiated by the Futurists and Dadaists in
the 1910s and 1920s came to fruition with the performance art movements, one branch of
which was referred to as Happenings. Happenings involved more than the detached
observation of the viewer; the artist engaged with Happenings required the viewer to
actively participate in each piece. There was not a definite or consistent style for
Happenings, as they greatly varied in size and intricacy. However, all artists staging
Happenings operated with the fundamental belief that art could be brought into the realm
of everyday life. This turn toward performance was a reaction against the long-standing
dominance of the technical aesthetics of Abstract Expressionism and was a new art form
that grew out of the social changes occurring in the 1950s and 1960s.
Key Ideas
A main component of Happenings was the involvement of the viewer. Each instance a
Happening occurred the viewer was used to add in an element of chance so, every time a
piece was performed or exhibited it would never be the same as the previous time. Unlike
preceding works of art which were, by definition, static, Happenings could evolve and
provide a unique encounter for each individual who partook in the experience.
The concept of the ephemeral was important to Happenings, as the performance was a
temporary experience, and, as such could not be exhibited in a museum in the traditional
sense. The only artifacts remaining from original Happenings are photographs and oral
histories. This was a challenge to the art that had previously been defined by the art object
itself. Art was now defined by the action, activity, occasion, and/or experience that
constituted the Happening, which was fundamentally fleeting and immaterial.
The purpose of Happenings was to confront and dismantle conventional views of the
category of "art." These performances were so influential to the art world that they raised the
specter of the "death" of painting.

Beginnings
Happenings were inspired by the performances of Futurists who would enact short avant-
garde plays and read their manifestoes and poetry on stage. The Futurist tendency to break
the "fourth wall" and elicit audience participation became a central idea in the Happening:
the absence of boundaries between the viewer and the artwork meant the artwork became
defined by the action as opposed to the physical, or resulting, object.
The Dadaists who declared that art did not have to meet expectations about what "art" was
supposed to look like also influenced the artists who created Happenings. Additionally, the
Dadaist use of the element of chance heavily guided the evolution of Happenings as an art
form. The ideas of composer John Cage and the teachings of instructors at Black Mountain
College including Josef and Anni Albers, Merce Cunningham, Robert
Motherwell and Buckminster Fuller further impacted the views of Happenings artists in their
belief that learning should be a continual process, with no distinction between making or
learning about art and routine aspects of day-to-day life. There was an emphasis on the
perpetual state of learning and creating; an appreciation for the prosaic, which influenced
many artists of the time, particularly Allan Kaprow, who coined the term "Happening" while
describing performance events that had taken place on George Segal's farm in 1957.
These aforementioned theories and ideas led to the creation of the Happening which was a
combination of performance and installation art. Happenings fully evolved from Kaprow's
"environments," which were installation pieces that involved large sculptural collages. After
taking John Cage's class Kaprow introduced the element of sound into his work and from

10
there came the first Happening by Kaprow. It was untitled and performed at Voorhees
Chapel at Douglass Campus on April 22, 1958.

Concepts and Styles

The audience participation in Happenings incorporated the aspect of chance, as anything
could happen at any time and each performance would be completely unique from the
one before. This was the critical difference between Happenings and other performance art
of the time, which emphasized a more theatrical and repeatable ethos. Happenings could
be enacted anywhere; sometimes they were staged in galleries, but they were performed
just as often in a theater setting, on the street, on a farm or even in one instance, a cave.
Happenings were both large-scale and elaborate or small and intimate depending upon the
artist. For example, Allan Kaprow had started out looking for a way to extend the action of
painting beyond the canvas and into the space of the viewer. He achieved this by building
environments for viewers to be inside of and adding sound and various objects for the viewer
to interact with. Robert Watts also created pieces similar in size and scale, utilizing created
environments that the audience would partake in.
Happenings artists such as George Brecht worked in a smaller scale, creating games that the
viewer interacted with. Brecht wanted these pieces to reflect Zen Buddhist philosophical
ideas. Brecht would also write "event scores" where he would leave directions as to what the
viewer should do, which then turned the viewer into the performer. As with many
movements, Happenings artists each brought a slightly different viewpoint to the table and
approached the creative process with their own personal agenda.
Happenings and Fluxus
There was much cross-over between Happenings artists and the Fluxus group; Allan Kaprow
and George Brecht especially were involved in both movements. It is therefore difficult to
definitively categorize them as two entirely separate entities especially because Fluxus held
several events at Rutgers University where Happenings had originated. Happenings usually
involved artists who would later become known as the "Rutgers Group:" Allan Kaprow,
George Segal, Robert Watts and George Brecht. Fluxus emerged in New York led by
artist George Maciunas, and there were also Fluxus groups in Europe and Japan. The
Happenings artists were not part of an organized group with a leader like the Fluxus group
and the term Happenings is not the name of a movement but the name of certain
performance pieces.
Happenings and Fluxus both integrated the use of audience participation to contribute to
the outcome of the art, however they differed in several significant ways. Happenings is not
the name of a movement but the name of certain performance pieces that were generally
more complicated and outlined than Fluxus events, like an improvisational theatrical work
that involved the audience. They were more expressionistic and symbolic than Fluxus
performances. Fluxus events were usually loosely outlined or not outlined at all. They involved
a sardonic sense of humor often leaving the viewer in the position of being the victim of a
practical joke. For instance, one Fluxus piece consisted of sending out invitations to
nonexistent performances where the viewer would arrive to find nothing.

Later Developments
Happenings culminated with the infamous 1963 Yam Festival, a month-long series of events
held on George Segal's farm and in other locations in and around New York. After this event,
Happenings began to dwindle in the mid sixties as other new art forms and theories gained
prominence, such as conceptual art, body art and feminist art. Nevertheless, most of these

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newer movements had some roots in Happenings in their emphasis on interaction and
embodied experience.
Important Art and Artists of Happenings
American Moon (1960)
Artist: Robert Whitman
American Moon by Robert Whitman was first performed at the Reuben Gallery in New York.
The piece consisted of six paper tunnels that radiated outwards from the performance area
in which the audience would sit to watch piles of cloth being moved accompanied by
various sounds. Curtains with grids of paper were then hung in front of the tunnels and a
movie was projected onto them while performers made slight movements to the cloth
causing distortions in the movie. At the end of the screening the tunnels were ripped down
and the curtains removed. Lights flashed as figures rolled on the floor, a giant plastic balloon
was rolled around and someone swung on a trapeze, all to a soundtrack of a vacuum
cleaner. Whitman called these works "abstract theater" as abstracted sounds and images
were a significant aspect of his work. In the variety of frenzied activity, Whitman claimed his
work was much like a three-ring circus.
Cloth, paper, clear plastic, wood and cellophane tape

Yard (1961)
Artist: Allan Kaprow
Yard by Kaprow involved the random scattering and piling of tires over the floor and an
invitation to visitors to climb over them. This piece was supposedly in response to Jackson
Pollock's "drip" paintings: the incorporation of chance as a mainstay of the work, but with a
certain amount of control left to the artist. Just as Pollock had a certain amount of power
over his drip paintings, aesthetics were still very much subject to chance. Here Kaprow used
the tires as Pollock used his paint. The result- a haphazard pile of tires nevertheless
circumscribed into a semblance of compositional order- is a three-dimensional translation of
Pollock's practice. Kaprow's pieces often involved materials from everyday life, including
people; Kaprow stated, "Life is much more interesting than art." Yard, like many Happenings,
has been recreated several times since Kaprow's initial installation, and each time a unique
artwork is produced.
Tires

Stamp Vendor (1961)

Artist: Robert Watts
Stamp Vendor involved stamps that artist Robert Watts created and placed inside of actual
stamp dispensers that Watts "borrowed" from the United States Post Office. The "borrowing"
(stealing) was in protest of certain policies of the United States government at the time Watts
deemed oppressive. The stamp dispensers were put on display in exhibitions and viewers
could purchase the stamps by placing coins in the coin slots. The stamps, designed by Watts,
had different images on them ranging from gas cans to nude women. This piece differs from
many other Happenings for the smaller, more intimate scale and for the fact that the viewer
was interacting with an object as opposed to a person. Also, unlike many other Happenings
that eschewed the traditional art object, it should be noted that by interacting with
the Stamp Vendor, the viewer was then able to take with them a work of art: the stamp
created by Watts.
Commercial stamp dispenser and paper

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Eat (1964)
Artist: Allan Kaprow
Allan Kaprow's Eat took place in the Bronx, in caves that used to be part of an old brewery.
Visitors could make one-hour reservations through the Smolin Gallery to view the piece,
which was a participatory, sensory, gustatory experience that involved repeated audio.
When the viewer walked in he was confronted with a man's voice repeating, "Get 'em!", two
girls offering varieties of wine, banana bunches and apples tied to strings and hanging from
the ceiling, a girl frying bananas on a hot plate, bread and jam in an enclosure that one
could only get to by climbing a ladder, as well as the man (who was repeating, "Get 'em!,")
handing out pieces of salted boiled potatoes. The viewer was free to eat any of the food in
the exhibit. Not only did the viewer mold the experience to his or her personal choices, but
they also had the ability to change the piece for the viewer that came in after them. The
complicated imagery, opportunities for participation, and uniqueness of the staging
make Eat a typical Happening.
Wine, apples, bananas, hot plate, wood, bread, jam, potatoes

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