Allan Kaprow

Allan Kaprow was born on August 23 1927. He was an American painter, assemblagist and a performance artist. Fluxus, performance art, and installation art influenced his work. In 1958, Kaprow created “Happenings.”  The style of the “Happenings” evolved overtime. At first he started it as “lightly scripted events.” The audience and performers would follow signals to participate in the art. He characterized a “Happening” as a game, adventures and activities in which participants played for the sake of playing. He said that the Happenings were “events that, put simply, happen.”

One of his works was “Eighteen Happenings in Six Parts.” This involved an audience to move together and do different activities such as play instruments, painting and etc. His work became less scripted and started to show more daily activities. Kaprow’s most famous happenings began around 1961.  He would take out students or friends to a location to perform an action. He created techniques that would draw out creative responses from the audience. I really like Kaprow’s work because he creates a combination of life and art. He basically turns daily things and events into bold art. He never recorded these “Happenings” so they would typically only be seen once. I think this made his work even stronger in the sense that it would only “happen” once.