1950 - nowadays
Happening
description
Happening
Happening wais a type of contemporary art consisting of an action that occurred with the participation of the author. It is not completely controlled by him since there is no plot or expectation of a specific result.
The term was first used in 1950 by Allan Kaprow to refer to particular events related to art but was officially introduced in 1959 at an art event on George Segal’s farm. The term was first mentioned in Kaprow’s essay, “The Legacy of Jackson Pollock,” written in 1956.
Happening exists in the form of painting, performance, festivals with audio or video.
Key ideas:
– Inability to repeat the performance.
– The lack of boundaries between the work of art and the audience. Key moments of Happening are planned. However, the artist always leaves room for improvisation, most often with the participation of the audience. This emphasizes the non-linearity of the process, which can occur anywhere. His later works lacked any established rules, only vague guidelines. When “something goes wrong”, it is the over-revealed, most anticipated element of action.
– Refusal of well-known artistic principles and predictability.
– The art of happening consists of social and socio-political semantic elements.
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Yoko Ono is an English and American innovative artist, writer, and musician of Japanese descent. Yoko became known to the general public largely thanks to her marriage to John Lennon, a musician and member of the legendary Beatles band. However, long before this union, she clearly showed her talent in Conceptual art, becoming one of the pioneers of installation and performance.
February 18, 1933, Tokyo, Japan
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An American artist and theorist, the central figure of the avant-garde of the 60s, the discoverer of the happening - a form of art in which the primary attention is paid to the process of creation. Allan Kaprow appreciated the moment of action in painting, putting it above the result.The fleeting, often quick and spontaneous actions of Kaprow erase the line between art and everyday life and immerse participants in the work, involving them in the creative process and destroying the notorious “fourth wall” between the work and the audience.In his theoretical writings, Allan Kaprow said that after the discoveries of Jackson Pollock and other Abstract Expressionists, painting could no longer exist in its original form. It must go beyond the canvas and move into everyday life.The master called himself “non-artist” and his works “anti-paintings”. “Life is much more interesting than art”, said Kaprow and created events outside galleries and museums: in courtyards, apartments, streets, squares and parking lots. Sometimes his works are even absurd - such as building houses from ice under the scorching California sun; they change the very perception of art and turn everyday life processes into creative acts.The principles of the creation of happening, which Allan Kaprow outlined in his work “How to Make a Happening”, were enthusiastically accepted by many post-war artists who tried to take a fresh look at modern creative methods. Thanks to the discoveries of the American innovator, such styles as installation, performance and conceptual art were further developed.
1927 - 2006