Evolving Happenings
Allan Kaprow had a distinguished career as professor, writer, artist, and lifelike art maker — his own ideological designation. Some of his earliest and most influential works are the Happenings, engaging events intended to blur the line between art and the everyday while prompting new appreciation. Kaprow shared the guidelines that he developed for the design of these events and his findings in their application in his 1965 publication, “Assemblages, Environments, and Happenings.” Decades later, several questions arise: what became of those guidelines, of Happenings themselves, and of Kaprow’s views on traditional art and institutions? Did the epiphany of this new art simply die out, continue with measured success, or, over time and after multiple implementations, evolve into something else entirely? Fortunately, Kaprow documented his views on art, and his practice within it, throughout his life; and thus a study of Kaprow’s later essay, “The Real Experiment” from 1983, proves revelatory in these inquiries.
In his early discussion of Happenings, Kaprow was adamant that the line between art and life should be fluid, but that Happenings must avoid art as a theme and art institutions in general — perhaps only temporarily though. This latter caveat has no specific expiration date, but Kaprow suggested it must remain until we have a new perspective on art, until this distinct division between art and life has been successfully erased from the general psyche. He hoped that by avoiding the history, connections, culture, and most importantly, habits, that define the core of Western art, that Happenings might lead to a new set of standards. Still, he admitted “the Happening is conceived as an art, but this is for lack of a better word, or one that would not cause endless discussion” (Kaprow 261).
Two decades later, Kaprow, who after witnessing its continued stronghold over the years became even more impassioned about the dangers of art and its environment, describes art institutions as powerful frames which fully strip all art within them of any meaning other than a tradition focused on separation and isolation. He has also decided to risk opening up that aforementioned tricky discussion, and places current Western art concepts into the category of artlike art, with the revolutionary perspective of holistic connectedness being what he calls lifelike art (Kaprow and Kelley 201-203). The focus on defining art as implicitly part of life, not to be separated but instead fully encased in the everyday, remains at the heart of his discussion.
The intervening years have provided sufficient history and experience of lifelike artists for Kaprow to dissect and cite specific pitfalls created by the lure of artlike art. He extends and expands his original guidelines, pointing out how so many genres, attempting to proclaim themselves part of the new art, have failed. For him at this stage, the only successful examples of lifelike art are those which have not acquired names (genres), framing mechanisms, or any recognition from the artlike art world.
In “Assemblies, Environments, and Happenings,” Kaprow reflected on several points of consideration for artists blurring the boundary between art and life: time, location, repeatability, and composition. An event could happen at any time, consist of multiple occurrences, and run for any duration — hours, days, years — dictated not by design but by the particular experience as it played out. Similarly, no space was deemed inappropriate (except of course institutions of art); events could occur at one place, across multiple locales simultaneously, or consist of a series of different locations. He also emphasized the value of non-repeatability and elements of chance in forcing the artist to consider novel approaches, modes, and mental connections to media. He reiterated the value of randomness and flexibility in the act of composition, believing the occurrence itself, the environment, and the participants should dictate a large portion of the event, rather than relying on existing formalist theories. Kaprow explained, “a whole body of nonintellectualized, nonculturized experience is opened to the artist and he is free to use his mind anew in connecting things he did not consider before” (267).
In his later writing, Kaprow counters his discussion of failures with that of two successful pieces. One describes an artist who wins a mayoral election for a small village which, though in desperate need of integration into the larger township, is rendered immobile through fear. The artist continues his piece by working with the townspeople and eventually it disincorporates for the betterment of the whole community. He then resigns and leaves the state, never to enter politics again. The second example is of an artist who plans a daily walk along a section of dunes, documented in her journal each evening. Her recordings reveal struggles and epiphanies as the walk inevitably transforms in response to the environment, even as she tries desperately to repeat it, and as her mood alters in relation to the experience. From his discussion of these examples, while some of Kaprow’s earlier guidelines remain applicable, it is pertinent to note how others have diverged.
For both examples, decisions regarding time, space, repeatability, and composition all seem to respect his earlier guidelines; however, at that time he also paid particular attention to another distinguishing element, the audience. A lasting aspect of Happenings and this new art is the powerful impact produced from removing the audience altogether. If people are unaware of the event but involved by witnessing it unexpectedly (passers-by on a street) or incidentally (a clerk serving participants), they are in fact part of the environment. Otherwise they should be participants, incorporated through active and completely voluntary engagement similar to that found in games and Zen Buddhist lessons (Kaprow 264-265).
However, in his later essay, neither example serves to integrate; the sole participant is the artist. While this design is certainly not prohibited in the original treatise, his later writings suggest that a group of more than a few is no longer lifelike, and similar to considerations of space, timing, and configuration, even participation has become a sign of artlike art — or at least an unignorable aspect of art rather than the everyday. In fact, in the early seventies, Kaprow distanced himself from Happenings, favoring what he termed Activities. These later pieces were far more personal, designed as instructions that could be sent to and experienced by individuals or small groups, exclusive of his participation (Perreault 2). Perhaps this move toward artist as exclusive participant, or more intimate participation without artist, is due in part to his growing focus on lifelike art’s primary roles as therapy and self-knowledge which he proffers in the later piece as absolutely critical for our survival. Self-knowledge in his own words is “the hard and long process of existential comprehension . . . the path of the separate self to the egoless self” (Kaprow and Kelley 217).
The most critical difference depicted in “The Real Experiment,” however, is the far more stringent requirement for the removal of any distinction between art and life. In fact, Kaprow must acknowledge that he is often asked, if likelike art is so dissimilar to traditional art and so similar to life, then what makes it art? Kaprow has refactored his definition of this new art, and now, rather than simply encouraging the active contemplation of daily activities in order to inspire new awareness or appreciation, he demands a far more challenging purpose, as “a way of sharing responsibility for what may be the world’s most pressing problem,” the problem of understanding “countless disconnected, and sometimes very dangerous, pieces of our culture and to rediscover the whole“ (Kaprow and Kelley 216).
Kaprow’s later writings serve to distinguish lifelike art from artlike art and draw a critical distinction between the art that bred Happenings and his emerging ideology. The latter, perhaps bred from frustration, demands more separation, in place of acceptance, and develops more restrictions, at the expensive of inclusiveness. No longer does he bother with a disclaimer that suggestions are meant to be outgrown; nor does he recognize artlike art as able to coexist alongside lifelike art. Interestingly, while the narrow but demanding role of lifelike art as a holistic therapy mechanism to unify the global conscious through engaged introspection surely continues in some form today, it is the art to which Happenings belonged that proved revolutionary, impactful, and still highly relevant.
Works Cited
Kaprow, Allan. “Chapter 33.” Assemblages, Environments, Happenings, Abrams, New York, NY, 1965, pp. 260–268.
Kaprow, Allan, and Jeff Kelley. “The Real Experiment.” Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA, 2003, pp. 201–218.
Perreault, John. “Allan Kaprow: The Retread.” Artopia, Arts Journal, 4 Sept. 2011, http://www.artsjournal.com/artopia/2009/10/allan_kaprow_the_retread.html.