Leah Miller
Stuart Steck
Foundation Seminar
29 November 2010
Happening Attraction
After first reading “Happenings: an art of radical juxtaposition” I was slightly confused about what Happenings were and their purpose because it seemed that there was no purpose. It seemed that they were a bunch of objects and movements thrown in a box and shaken up for a half hour, but as I read on and read Kaprow’s “Happenings in the New York Scene” I began to become more interested in Happenings, and feel that they truly are an art form, and very much a modern art form, though it is noted that trends like these in art forms like these are often repeated. Although Kaprow notes that he does not feel that it is a work of art, it was his discussion of Happenings that led me to think otherwise.
It has several aspects of art that I have read about and experienced, and although Kaprow’s article states that the concept of theater has been widen to include Happenings, from the statement of these articles, I feel that Happenings could be included in the visual arts. It has both aspects of sound, sculpture, installation, and moving image and performance, and as Kaprow describes theater performances and plays, they simply are dependent on music and words and movements to tell a story, where as Happenings are very different from that. He states himself, that Happenings have no plot and are materialized in an ‘improvisatory fashion.’ Dance and music are in a category of the arts that often contain an ‘improvisatory fashion,’ but should also not be completely considered theater, because the plot is not as drawn out and there is not the same arrangement of dialogue. Instead of being part of the story like actors and actresses, dancers are too visual artists telling a story through a series of movements. Because the visual arts can also be created in an ‘improvisatory fashion’ like dancing and music, it is possible that Happenings can be part of the visual arts category of art today.
Other forms of visual contemporary art that often engage and involve the viewer, like Happenings are that of Oldenburg’s and Steinburg’s works. These works are interactive with the viewer and work with un-artsy materials to demonstrate society. Many may appear as a mess with little skill needed, but instead, they are just the opposite, where the thought put into them is very complex. Painted pictures or graphic designs may appear to have a clear purpose and focal point unlike many Happenings, particularly when they depict a specific event they appear very organized, but like that of Happenings they too do not have a plot line. They may be part of one, such as in a cartoon or comic series, but even then, the story is spread out over several frames. When the entire message can be painted in a single frame, there may be tension and a story, but never a plot line like in stories or plays or songs, which makes the Happenings in a sense more like pictures and installations than that of theatre performances.
Although there is a large emphasis on the improvisation of these works, and actors are often said to do improve, they cannot be considered part of the theatrical category, because plays are planned and staged, and everyone’s action is choreographed, so that a message can be displayed and a clear story is depicted; nothing is representational.
Another reason that the Happenings do not fit this category as well as others, is because of its temporality and interaction with the viewer. There are more and more artists who create installations that seem to develop encompassing arrangements with objects that can change over time, like Oldenburg’s “The Yard,” Rebecca Meyers’s “Night Side,” Joisah McElheny’s, “Infinity Effect,” and many more works like those of John Steinburg and Swoon, that all deal with creating a specific environment in which the viewer views the work, and thus the reaction of the viewer. By combining the two elements these Happenings and other works deal with the effect of time and action rather than product, to create a particular, one time only, sensation. All of these works are very different and can be categorized a number of ways because of these different elements, but they all work to deal with the way natural products move and how the viewer sees them or their world, and absorbs these moments that change every second. Whether they are in a gallery space cramped with tires or white walls free of dust the viewer is completely surrounded by deteriorating materials.
Artists like Oldenburg create new and contemporary art like the Happenings that has more emphasis on the process of viewing, rather than what is being viewed. Although Meyer’s videos are not done to such a dramatic and completely encompassing extent, she displays her work in a small black room, with a large video screen and sound to make the viewer feel that they are really there and see the image close up and can interact with it, like it is just the viewer and the the scene. With McElheny’s piece in the ICA, it interacts with the viewer and uses optical illusions to create a sense of fear within the viewer like many of the Happenings do. With the Happenings, the art is controlling what you see and how the viewers react to it. It is more controlling where as other art forms like a play, novel, poem, picture, sculpture, etc. allow the viewer to interpret it how they want, and the viewer gets to decide how they feel about the art, not the art itself gets to decide. The materials are arranged in either a crammed ally way or old shop or even in the wilderness, and uses garbage like materials that are familiar to that environment to depict the human mind or area with a series of random actions. A number of flimsy materials are used for the purpose of seeing how they interact with different movements, which is ultimately different every time, and part of the aura of the Happenings. Just like Swoon uses paper and tracing paper in her Coney Island installation, the happenings use several objects that can move and change with time. This work is still considered a work of visual art, even though it contains many of the similar properties of those that make up the Happenings, which is currently categorized as a theatrical art form.
Like Kaprow says, plays can be repeated twice and will mean the same thing every time, as the words and movements will be the same every time it runs, but the Happenings that occur very seldom if not only once, will be different every time. A picture also can be interpreted many more ways because of several compositional and visual elements that are never viewed the same for each person every time, and the materials used that often change with time. Despite the changing and moving objects in these works, they still have the title of visual arts, as so should the Happenings, where the art is in the arrangement of movements.
Once again, the battle between literature and the arts, or text and image come into conflict. The Happenings though contain lots of movement should not be considered the concept of ‘theater.’ Although putting it in terms of theater did help me to understand Happenings better it is not a theatrical performance or work of art. Like a play, it does control what the viewer sees whether for comic or satirical purposes, but it does not last as long as a play and will never be the same each time it is viewed, if viewed more than once, because of the materials used and the improvisational ways of the movements. Unlike most theatrical performances, it lacks human action and plot line. There are several similarities and differences in every piece of art work whether it is musical, theatrical, literary, or visual, but because of the major components that separate each into a different category, the combination of improvisational movements and the un-artsy materials of these happenings, they are truly the new contemporary works of visual art, and not staged, theatrical performances.
