Shawyer dissertation May 2008 final version - The University of ...

what an audience brings to the observation of a work of art. Kaprow reminisces that theterm was:merely a neutral word that was part of a title of one of my projected ideasin 1958-59. It was the word which I thought would get me out of thetrouble of calling it a ‘theatre piece,’ a ‘performance,’ a ‘game,’ a ‘totalart,’ or whatever, that would evoke associations with known sports,theatre, and so on. But then it was taken up by other artists and the press tothe point where now all over the world it is used in conversation by peopleunaware of me, and who do not know what a Happening is. (Kirby,Happenings 47)Despite the implied neutrality in the word “happening,” a Happening was originally notunplanned or undirected, but rather a carefully planned art event.Because by the mid 1960s “happening” was being used by others in the art worldto mean a variety of performance art events, and used fairly indiscriminately outside theart world to mean any kind of event with avant-garde cachet, Kaprow set out to define theterm in detail with his 1966 book Assemblage, Environments and Happenings. In it heproscribes rules for Happenings, such as keeping the line between art and life fluid (188),and performing a Happening only once (193). Kaprow imagines Happenings asextensions of assemblages, three-dimensional art works that viewers can handle or walkaround, and environments, art works that the viewer can walk into or through. Byextending the art work into three dimensions, emphasizing process, and including theviewer as part of the experience of the art, Kaprow developed the Happening as an art120