History

The actual term 'happening' was first used in 1959 by the American artist Allan Kaprow (b.1927), whose later book 'Assemblage, Environments and Happenings' (1966) influenced a wide range of contemporary art events. Kaprow's first 'happening' comprised Admission Piece: 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, (Reuben Gallery, New York, 1959), which involved spectators moving objects in the gallery, so that all distinction between art and life would disappear. Action would spring from unplanned reaction to be art. The composer John Cage (1912–1992), creator of 4 minutes 33 seconds (the controversial, completely silent musical composition) and "the event" (a famous mixture of music, dance and other performances) (both 1952) - provided impetus and a model, while additional theoretical support came from Dada and Surrealist events, as well as Pop Art.

After 1959, other famous artists began presenting Happenings, sometimes in collaboration with Kaprow, and shows were staged in London, Paris, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf, Cologne and Berlin. Among postmodernist artists prominent in the movement were the Swiss kinetic artist Jean Tinguely (1925-1991), American painter Jim Dine (b.1935), the American Pop-Artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923-97), the Swedish-American sculptor Claes Oldenburg (b.1929), Robert Rauschenberg (b.1925), Joseph Beuys (1921-86), the Polish multi-media artist Tadeusz Kantor (1915-90) and the self-taught Swiss artist Ben Vautier (b.1935). Happenings multiplied through the 1960s but gave way in the early 1970s to Performance art in which greater emphasis was placed on the consciously dramatic actions of the artist. See also the Japanese installation and performance artist Yayoi Kusama (b.1929), best known for her Happenings involving phallic imagery decorated with polka dots.

Fluxus Movement & Gutai Group

In addition to Performance, one direct outgrowth of Happening art was the German-born Fluxus Movement (named after the Latin word for 'a flowing'), which was launched in 1962 by the Lithuanian born American theorist and art philosopher George Maciunas (1931-78). Its aim, like many avant-garde contemporary art movements, was to instigate an anti-art, anti-bourgeois program which combined several art forms but outside the world of commercial art. It was not unlike the earlier Dada movement, although Fluxus avoided the latter's political statements. The movement's ten year span of activity consisted mainly of street-based Happenings. Members of Fluxus included some American artists but it's main arena was Germany where Joseph Beuys and Wolf Vostell (b.1932) were involved for a time.

In Japan, Happenings as types of performance art, were exploited during the 1960s by the Gutai Group - the avant-garde art group founded by Jiro Yoshihara in Osaka in 1954.

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