Tag Archives: happenings

Inhabiting Allan Kaprow’s Push and Pull

kaprow push pull instructions
[Excerpt from instructions page at Kaprow’s Push and Pull. The full text of the instructions is available online here, or for the typewriter/paper feel, read them here.]

Creative Time organised a presentation of Allan Kaprow’s Push and Pull: A Furniture Comedy for Hans Hofmann, during the Performa Festival. It ran for three days at a space called Passerby.

Push and Pull is a dynamic installation in which anyone can come and rearrange furniture which is spread around in a room. Well, we might call it an installation now, but in Kaprow’s day (the piece was first presented in 1963) it was a “Happening” (or an “Environment”). It’s clear that Kaprow, in the four years since 18 Happenings in 6 Parts was presented, had substantially reworked his idea of what a Happening should be. If 18 Happenings in 6 Parts was a sort of experimental theatre involving specially prepared “actors”, then by the time he devised Push and Pull, Kaprow had moved on to creating situations where the “audience” was now the primary activator of the work.
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18 Happenings in 6 Parts

allan kaprow happening
[more photos here]

On Sunday night Lizzie and I went down to Long Island City to see the “re-do” of Allan Kaprow’s 18 Happenings in 6 Parts. I’m a big fan of Kaprow’s work and his writings, and I’m also really interested in re-enactment or re-creation as a method of experiencing ephemeral artwork from the past. (Karinne Keithly has written another account of 18 Happenings over here).

A few notes on the event:
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Kaprow’s Fluids (1967)

FLUIDS
A HAPPENING BY
ALLAN KAPROW

DURING THREE DAYS, ABOUT TWENTY
RECTANGULAR ENCLOSURES OF ICE
BLOCKS (MEASURING ABOUT 30
FEET LONG, 10 WIDE AND 8
HIGH) ARE BUILD THROUGHOUT
THE CITY. THEIR WALLS ARE
UNBROKEN. THEY ARE LEFT TO MELT

-THOSE INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING SHOULD ATTEND A PRELIMINARY MEETING AT THE PASADENA ART MUSEUM, 46 NORTH LOS ROBLES AVENUE, PASADENA, AT 8.30PM, OCTOBER 11 10, 1967. THE HAPPENING WILL BE THOROUGHLY DISCUSSED BY ALLAN KAPROW AND ALL DETAILS WORKED OUT.

[-poster for FLUIDS (1967) – from the funny old book Adrian Henri, Total Art: Environments, Happenings, and Performance, Praeger, New York, 1974, p97]

[Update November 27, 2007: Fluids was remade at the Performa Festival in NYC in 2007. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend that event, but I have written about Push and Pull, and 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, which were also recreated during Performa.]

Allan Kaprow’s “Moving”

MOVING
A HAPPENING BY ALAN KAPROW
(FOR MILAN KNIZAK)

SOME UNUSED HOUSES IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE CITY. ON EACH OF 4 DAYS, OLD FURNITURE IS OBTAINED AND IS PUSHED THROUGH THE STREETS TO THE HOUSES. THE FURNITURE IS INSTALLED.

ON THE FIRST DAY, BEDROOMS ARE FURNISHED, AND SLEPT IN THAT NIGHT.

ON THE SECOND DAY, DINING ROOMS ARE FURNISHED, AND A MEAL IS EATEN.

ON THE THIRD DAY, LIVING ROOMS ARE FURNISHED, AND GUESTS ARE INVITED TO COCKTAILS.

ON THE FOURTH DAY, ATTICS ARE FILLED AND THEIR DOORS ARE LOCKED.

THOSE INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING SHOULD MEET AT 8PM NOV 27 1967 AT THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, CHICAGO.

-from poster displayed in Warhol's Time Capsule show at the NGV.