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| Happenings (art) | |
|---|---|
| Title | Happenings |
| Year | 1950s–1960s |
| Movement | Fluxus, Neo-Dada, Pop Art |
| Medium | Performance, installation, mixed media |
Happenings (art) are ephemeral, participatory events that emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s, combining theatrical improvisation, visual art practices, and audience interaction to challenge established institutions and artistic authorship. Drawing on avant-garde experiments across Europe and North America, these events involved artists, writers, composers, and directors in site-specific actions that blurred boundaries between painting, sculpture, theater, and everyday life.
Happenings developed from cross-pollination among artists associated with New York University, Black Mountain College, School of Visual Arts, University of Chicago, Repertory Theater, and institutions linked to figures such as John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, Alfred Stieglitz, and Man Ray. Influences included movements and events like Dada, Surrealism, Futurism, Constructivism, Bauhaus, and projects by Kurt Schwitters, Hannah Höch, Man Ray, Kazimir Malevich, and Pablo Picasso. Key precedents were performances at venues such as Black Mountain College, Theater of the Ridiculous, Happenings at Black Mountain College, and programming at institutions like Guggenheim Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum, and Tate Modern. Compositional and theatrical strategies also drew from collaborations among Earle Brown, Morton Feldman, Meredith Monk, Philip Glass, and production modes practiced at Theater Genesis, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and Judson Memorial Church.
Leading practitioners included Allan Kaprow, Yves Klein, Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, Jim Dine, Lucas Samaras, Niki de Saint Phalle, Jean Tinguely, Wolf Vostell, Dieter Roth, Gunnar Berg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Whitman, Robert Morris, Suzanne Lacy, Carolee Schneemann, Yoko Ono, La Monte Young, Nam June Paik, Marcel Broodthaers, Fluxus, Gutai Group, St. Martin's School of Art, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, California Institute of the Arts, and collectives such as Anonyme Artists, Happenings Group, and ensembles associated with Judson Dance Theater. Curators and promoters like Ivan Karp, Henry Geldzahler, Mary Heilmann, Lawrence Alloway, Thelma Golden, and Emile de Antonio played roles in mediating public visibility.
Happenings were defined by open scores, improvisation, audience participation, site specificity, and nonhierarchical authorship, often incorporating objects and actions associated with Everyday Life and commodities shown in venues like Sixth Street Market or public squares near Times Square. Techniques ranged from scripted instruction pieces and crowd work to staged disturbances, mail art distribution, staged meals, and environments built with found objects from places like Factory (Andy Warhol), Jackson Pollock's studio, or flea markets associated with Chelsea Market. Materials and media included paint, sound, motion, film, and ready-made objects linked to markets such as Portobello Road Market and commercial platforms like Bloomingdale's. Documentation practices relied on photography by practitioners influenced by Walker Evans, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, film by Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, and audio by Pierre Schaeffer, with ephemeral records stored later at institutions such as Smithsonian Institution, Getty Research Institute, Museum of Modern Art Archives, and Tate Archives.
Noteworthy events included early experiments attributed to Allan Kaprow in New Jersey lofts, Kaprow's 18 Happenings in 6 Parts at Reina Sofia-style venues, performances at The Living Theatre, The Kitchen, and site-specific works staged in locations like Times Square, Washington Square Park, Central Park, and university auditoria at University of California, Los Angeles and Columbia University. Specific famous instances involved collaborative productions with Yves Klein at the Galerie Iris Clert, Niki de Saint Phalle and Jean Tinguely's shootings and parade-like events, Claes Oldenburg's street actions, Robert Rauschenberg's Combines transposed into performative situations, and multimedia pieces by Nam June Paik in partnership with Fluxus figures at MoMA PS1. Other influential examples took place at festivals like Darmstädter Ferienkurse, Spoleto Festival, Venice Biennale, Documenta, and presentations at galleries such as Green Gallery, Leo Castelli Gallery, Galerie Denise René, and Galerie Ileana Sonnabend.
Contemporary responses ranged from critical acclaim in journals like Artforum, ARTnews, The Village Voice, and Art in America to controversy in mainstream outlets such as The New York Times and Life (magazine), with legal and civic disputes invoking local authorities like New York City Police Department and municipal fora. Happenings influenced subsequent movements including Performance Art, Fluxus, Conceptual Art, Installation Art, Neo-Dada, Pop Art, Minimalism, Land Art, Video Art, and pedagogies at Black Mountain College successors such as CalArts. Their legacy is preserved in collections and archives at Museum of Modern Art, Guggenheim Museum, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, British Museum, V&A Museum, and university special collections at Yale University and Harvard University.
Happenings intersected with Fluxus through shared participants like Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, La Monte Young, and George Maciunas while differing in emphasis: Fluxus maintained leaner instruction scores and anti-commercial intent associated with George Maciunas's organizing activity and small editions sold via networks connected to Galerie René Block, Galleria Sperone, and alternative spaces. Performance art practitioners such as Carolee Schneemann, Chris Burden, Marina Abramović, Ulay, Vito Acconci, Terry Fox, and Joseph Beuys extended the Happenings' focus on body, endurance, and political framing, linking to venues like Documenta, Venice Biennale, and festivals curated by figures like John Cage and Yoko Ono. Institutional responses by curators such as Lucy Lippard and Kynaston McShine reframed Happenings within catalogs for exhibitions at Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Guggenheim.