Happenings

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Happenings has multiple meanings (besides the straightforward dictionary definition):

• Happenings, in the art world, are performances, events, or situations meant to be considered as art.

Artist Allan Kaprow coined the term Happening in the late 1950s. Happenings were unique event collages, often shaped by the actions of the audience that participated on any given performance. Happenings, which were held in loft spaces, abandoned factories, buses, parks, etc. had a major influence on popular culture of the 1960s and led to such mainstream cultural productions as the 60's television production "laugh-in" and in the arts, performance work by Chris Burden as well as such experimental endeavors as the "droppings", or Drop Art of Drop City, the 60's experimental "live-in" work of art. Kaprow viewed art as a vehicle for expanding awareness by prompting unexpected interactions. For Kaprow, art was a work-in-progress, with an unfolding narrative that was realized through the active participation of the audience.

References

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Happenings website, under construction by you - please contribute

artmuseum timeline

surfwax Chris Burden

WOW Report...and structured randomness invented in the 1960s by Allan Kaprow,...like Laugh-In, Hollywood Squares, The Dean Martin Show, and The Jackie Gleason Show... [1]

• The Happening, a 1967 comedy film starring Anthony Quinn
• The Happenings, a 1960s pop music band whose major hits were "See You In September" and a cover of "I Got Rhythm" updated for the nascent pop/rock era

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