Allan Kaprow was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey on August 23rd, 1927. He continued to stay in New Jersey throughout his childhood but then went away to college in New York. He attended New York University between the years of 1945 and 1949, where he received a Bachelors Degree in Philosophy and Art History. During his time at the University, Kaprow also spent some time studying at the Hans Hoffman School of Fine Arts in New York as well during the years of 1947 to 1948. After receiving his Bachelor's Degree, Kaprow completed his Graduate coursework in Philosophy in 1950. Kaprow then went on to receive his MA in Art History from Columbia University. He graduated there in 1952. Later on in 1957, Allan Kaprow studied musical composition with John Cage at the New School for Social Research in Manhattan.
Allan Kaprow's career began took off once he enrolled himself in the Hans Hoffman painting school. He expressed an interest in Abstract Expressionism and also paintings that involved incorporating collages assemblage. At Hoffman, Kaprow began to develop an expressive, high spirit style of action paintings, based on real landscapes and figures. During Kaprow's time at Hoffman, he began to create environmental works that demanded audience participation. This was influenced by John Cage. The environmental works involved an integration of space, materials, time, and people. More and more of Kaprow's environmental works eventually led to the development of happenings (a term introduced in 1959), which is what Kaprow is most well known for today.
Allan Kaprow's groundbreaking happening was introduced at the Reuben Gallery in New York in the fall of 1959. This happening was called "18 Happenings in 6 Parts". Most of the influence that helped with the happening came from an essay Kaprow wrote the year before called "The Legacy of Jackson Polluck". In this essay he demands "concrete art", which is the use of everyday materials that we use. Those materials include paint, chairs, food, lights, smoke, water, and etc. This is where Kaprow first expresses the term "happening". Stating that craftsmanship and performance should be forgotten and perishable materials should be use more in art. Allan Kaprow would describe a happening as "a game, an adventure, a number of activities engaged in by participants for the sake of playing." In the most simple words used, Kaprow states "events that happen". Kaprow did not want there to be any sort of structure when it came to his happenings. He wanted no distinction between the audience and the performers. It would be the viewer's reaction that would decide his art piece. Kaprow wanted each happening to be unique in a way that could not be recreated.
The Happenings first started as scripted events. It was with the help of John cage that Kaprow synthesized his training in action paintings of Cage's scored and performed events, that produced the first successful happening. This happening created an interactive environment that manipulated the audience to fully experience 20th century art. During the happening, the performers and audience would follow queues given to experience the art. These queues included a program and three stapled cards, which provided instructions for the audiences participation. The performance was divided up into six parts. Each part contained three happenings which would all occur at once. The beginning and end of every part would be signaled by a bell. One other instruction that was given to the audience was that when one part was over, you had to change seats and move to the next of the three rooms available. Each room was displayed with a semitransparent plastic sheets painted and collaged with references to Kaprow's early work. The whole idea of the happening was to involve the audience in which they moved together to experience elements such as playing toy instruments, a woman squeezing an orange, sweep the floor, climb a ladder, and painters painting. Each audience member was instructed how long he or she had to do this for. These happenings were never rehearsed and the participants did not know what they would be doing upon looking at the cards.
Above is a photo of Kaprow's notebook that displayed how he envisioned the happening of "18 Happenings in 6 Parts" to look like. When Kaprow first introduced to people the idea of happenings, it was very interesting because he would ask people to come participate in something they had no idea what to expect. In the late fifties, for an artist to ask an audience to watch people performing pedestrian activities was a racial innovation. It was later said that Kaprow's happenings seemed more like a "free-for-all complete with nude girls, film projections, audience participation and clouds of dry ice and marijuana." Others believe Kaprow's early happenings were in fact a sophisticated synthesis of visual art and theater.
As Allan Kaprow continued to create more happenings, they became less scripted and had more everyday activities involved within the performance. One other famous happening that Kaprow created involved bringing people into a room containing a large abundance of ice cubes, which the audience had to touch, causing them to melt and bringing the piece full circle. This happening was entitled "Fluids".
There are still many happenings that occur today due to the inspiration of Allan Kaprow. Back in 2008, the Los Angeles County Museum recreated Kaprow's "Fluids". During three days, about twenty rectangular enclosures of ice blocks, measuring about 30 feet long, 10 wide and 8 high, are built throughout the city. Their walls are unbroken and they are left to melt.
Some of Kaprow's most famous happenings occurred during the years of 1961 and 1962. He would take students or friends to a specific location and perform a small action(happening). These happenings were more spontaneous. Kaprow wanted these happenings to be more creative to the audience. He encourage the audience to make their own connections between ideas and events. In the words of Allan Kaprow, "And the work itself, the action, the kind of participation, was as remote from anything artistic as the site was." It was very rare for Kaprow to record any of his happenings because he wanted to make them a one time occurrence.
Then in 1961 Kaprow created an "endlessly mutable environment" entitled "Yards". It was a chaotic mountain of black rubber tires with dangling light bulbs that flicker on and off (or switch from white to red). There were also body bags stuffed with Vaseline-covered mannequins, two mirrored walls and an enigmatic spoken commentary. The purpose of this was to invite visitors to walk over or rearrange the tires at will. This was another one of Kaprow's ways to bring art and everyday life closer together.
Then in 1964, Kaprow created his next piece of work entitled "Household". This photo was taken near a dump by Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. At 11:00 AM that day, men and women gathered together to build a wooden tower of trash and a nest of saplings and string. A smoking, wrecked car was brought in where the men covered the car with strawberry jam. While the women were inside the nest, they would screech, wanting to be let out to lick the jam off the car. While the women continued to lick the jam, the men destroyed the nest. The men then returned to the car to slap white bread on top of the jam and eat it in this way inside. The women then went to the tower in retaliation to destroy what the men had built.
The meaning behind this happening was to show the violence and tension that exist between man and woman in society. Violence, which drives us apart, can also pull us together.
Allan Kaprow continued to produce other great works throughout his lifetime. Sadly he passed away a couple years ago on April 5, 2006.
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