HAPPENINGS 1 - expressionism, theatre
I've fallen into a very very big research pit, So ive decided to dump it here n separate it into different blog posts for my own convenience.; this intro one, different ones for artists, then a final one of some ideas ive had along the way/recently.
I want to use this as research for my deld film & other video ideas Ive had in the past. Also I got loads of ideas from this research, just little ones.
I cant remember how I came across this, but i think i was just looking at theatre & performance art in general.
Photography in the Expanded Field: Painting, Performance, and the Neo-Avant-Garde
(https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/phef/hd_phef.htm)
Summary:
In the 60s photog became more seen as a real art form, ut not fully like abstract painting.
Abstract expressionism began to wane, happening movement was born, exploring urban and chance effect themes of action painting.
Rauschenberg had been making 'Combines' since mid 50s - insp by dada collagists like Kurt Schwitters.
Rauschenberg's paintings ended up being used as backgrounds for film n theatre performances inc happenings (titled by allan kaprow) - "anarchic events intended to break through the complacency and conformity of mainstream American life and described by Susan Sontag at the time as “animated collages.”"
Kaprow studied with john cage who was close friends with rauschenberg
"Kaprow described the dynamic images made of happenings by photographers such as Lawrence Shustak and John Cohen (1997.503.1) as “dreamings”—companion visions that qualified them as independent works of art in their own right."
Quotes:
"While the painters of the Abstract Expressionist movement admired the graphic flair of Aaron Siskind’s graffiti details and the sidewalk ballet of Rudy Burckhardt’s street pictures, photography was still too irrevocably tied to the mundane to compete with the heroic aspirations inherent to abstract painting. "
At the same time that Abstract Expressionism began to wane, however, a disparate group of artists began to explore some of the overlooked implications of action painting—its gestural freedom, chance effects, and urban themes—giving birth to a wide array of strategies epitomized by Robert Rauschenberg’s oft-quoted statement that he wanted to act in the gap between art and life. Rauschenberg himself had been making Combines—found objects covered with slashing strokes of paint that blurred the boundaries between high and low
artists such as Rauschenberg adapted the shock tactics of World War I–era Dada collagists such as Kurt Schwitters to the new postwar context of American hegemonic power.
some of Rauschenberg’s paintings were created as set designs for modern dance, and the early 1960s also witnessed an explosion in performance, experimental theater, and film, in which photography played a crucial role. Perhaps the quintessential expression of this ferment were the new non-narrative, participatory performance pieces described by Allan Kaprow (2002.334; 2002.335; 2002.336) as “happenings”—anarchic events intended to break through the complacency and conformity of mainstream American life and described by Susan Sontag at the time as “animated collages.
Red Rooms the Burning Building John Cohen
^"it illuminates the Beat-era maxim that the artist's life and work are extensions of each other; in doing so, the photograph not only documents the artist at work, but embodies the creative spirit of Cohen's generation."
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.115385.html
reviews r interesting
Allan Kaprow, following in the footsteps of theatre innovators such as Artaud, Pirandello and Brecht
Red Grooms and Jim Dine.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/h/happening
Jim Dine’s 1960 suite of prints The Crash relates to the drawings that were props for his 1960 happening, The Car Crash.
Happening WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happening
Kaprow was a student of John Cage, who had experimented with "musical happenings" at Black Mountain College as early as 1952.[6] 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," wrote Botting, who also compared them to the "impermanent art" of Dada. "A happening explores negative space in the same way Cage explored silence.
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."
thinking about rubbish & class b4 .. dirt , dirty, art,etc
Watched this n made notes in my notebook:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rgrVClY3-Q lecture (42min)
It began with speaking about happenings but then went onto more well known performance artists.
an event, choreography or an activity that an artist, choreographer, or group put together. Usually happens only once and potentially filmed/photographed.
HUGO BALL
founding member of dada (the movement after WW1)
His 1st piece was him reading the dada manifesto in a get up/dunce hat looking thing.
Cabaret Voltaire (literally wrote about that earlier)
Video of him playing the piano
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkl92oV1kMc&t=41s
YVES KLEIN
falling into the void
-> art is freedome, that void/space is open to everyone to use/fill. Join us in this exploration.
MERCE CUNNINGHAM -
choreographer
Variations V (1966) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOAagU6cfBw
Cunningham film by Alla Kovgan
JOHN CAGE
'water walk'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXOIkT1-QWY&t=41s (4min)
happenings with sounds.
CAGE & CUNNINGHAM often worked together .. 'HOW TO PASS (1967)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJtD8vdl4Ec
A happening isnt always as smooth as something rehearsed a million times.
ALLAN KAPROW
- Yard (1961)
made interactive art
- writing on wall where audience write stuff
^^ remind me when I had that idea to have an exhibition of a canvas/piece of wood with white paint for audience to use to create a cohesive white painting... COuld be interesting would get thicker and could change the tone/shade every so often.
GEORGE MACIUNAS
-> FLux founder.
- 'George' official trailer doc on youtube
Sonic Youth playing piano 13 (geore maciunas) -- geoge made piece for nam juin paik!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=832ApdjhMcs
Josph Bueys - cayote guy
Stuart Brisley - lived in bathtub of gunk for 3days
Chris Burden - does dangerous performances to try relive NDEs ? shot w rifle n laid in dark road
Martin Creed - work 850, running in the tate gallery
Marina Abromovitch - want to hug a treee with her
Overall Thoughts:
Kinda goes across the line of happenings towards performance artist as vid goes on? What is a happening? can be v difficult to define i guess.
Also thinking about the role of the artist, does language let us down? (smthn been thinking about a lot lately)
Eg in a film you have writers, directors, etc..
For more situation/setting up interactive art is the artist more of a writer. for example? EG the DIY interactive white painting idea I ha.. I was thinking about how i dont think i would personally 'count' that as a piece of work/piece of My work. But more in a way of I wrote/produced it the way one would a theatre performance or a script....
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-what-were-1960s-happenings-and-why-do-they-matter
"art historian Kirk Varnedoe once said that attempting to preserve the Happenings would be “like trying to catch wind in a butterfly net.”"
"In October 1959, artist and Rutgers professor Allan Kaprow presented 18 Happenings in 6 Parts at the Reuben Gallery in New York’s East Village. Although he had experimented with the form earlier, this marked the first use of the term “Happening.”"
"Although the following four years would see Happenings organized by a range of artists, each with their own distinctive style, all could be characterized by a rough-around-the-edges aesthetic. “Everything about the production was as crude and as primitive as it could be, because nobody really had any money to spend on any of this stuff,” the artist Robert Whitman told the New York Times in retrospect. And while Happenings often had a structure, there was no character development or plot: “It was generally more visual than traditional theater: the accent was on the plastic composition more than storytelling.”"
"In the United States, experimental composer and musician John Cage was particularly influential in the development of the Happenings. In 1952, he organized an event at Black Mountain College—a 45-minute performance in which participants engaged in actions of their choosing—that would be seen as a precursor to Kaprow’s later explorations. Robert Rauschenberg, for example, hung his “White Paintings” from the rafters and projected slides onto them, while choreographer Merce Cunningham danced throughout the room."
"Although the term “Happening” hints at a spontaneous event, they were determined by whichever artist was in charge. Kaprow’s were carefully planned and deeply intellectual. Red Grooms, on the other hand, often came up with the particulars for his Happenings—which were noisy, physical, and carnival-esque—on the fly."
" the first group show for Happenings, “An Evening of Happenings,” in January 1960, organized by Kaprow. Whitman, whose Happenings tended towards the poetic, was included for the first time in this show with his work American Moon."
"The following month, Jim Dine and Claes Oldenburg performed in the group show “Ray Gun Spex,” a series of seven performances within built environments they had constructed at New York’s Judson Gallery (the renovated basement of a church). Simone Forti, dancer and artist, was the only woman who devised a Happening of her own in the Reuben Gallery—two, in fact, entitled See Saw and Rollers. Carolee Schneemann was the other major female artist involved in planning the Happenings, joining the group in 1960 as a participant in one of Oldenburg’s events. Feminist artists would become leading pioneers of performance art in the late ’60s and ’70s."
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