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    Beats, Environments, Happenings, Fluxus

    1. Happenings (Environments) - USA
      1. Allan Kaprow
      2. Claes Oldenburg
      3. Jim Dine
      4. Robert Morris
    2. Fluxus beginnings - NYC, Europe, Japan
      1. George Brecht '61 events in New York
      2. Paik (Nam June) '62 performances in Germany
      3. George Maciunas, Fluxus manifesto in New York 1963
      4. Ben Vautier, objects in Paris
    3. Feminist stirrings within and against Fluxus
      1. Carolee Schneemann
      2. Yoko Ono
      3. Shigeko Kubota

    Slide List

    Berman Untitled 1963
    Jess Tricky Cad 1959
    Kaprow Happenings in Six Parts 1959 (score and NY environment)
    Kaprow Yard New York 1961
    Kaprow Words New York 1962
    Kerouac Book of Dreams 1952
    Ferlinghetti Vajra Lotus 1960s
    Oldenburg The Street (installation) and Snapshots from the City (Happening) New York 1960
    Oldenburg The Store and constituent objects 1961
    Oldenburg Plate of Meat
    Dine Green Suit
    Dine The Smiling Workman performance New York 1960
    Dine The Car Crash performance New York 1960
    Brecht Event Scores 1961
    Brecht Repository 1961
    Brecht Three Acqueous Events performed New York 1963
    Fluxus Event Weisbaden, Germany 1962
    Fluxus Warehouse reconstruction 1964
    Morris Site Performance
    Paik Integral Piano 1958-63
    Paik Etude for Pianoforte (Shirttail Cutting) 1960
    Paik Zen for Head
    Paik Zen for TV 1963
    Maciunas Excreta Fluxorum 1972
    Maciunas Fluxus Manifesto 1949
    Vautier Other People's Art 1963
    Schneeman Meat Joy performed in New York and Paris 1964
    Schneeman Fluxus Statement 1964
    Ono Sky Dispenser 1961
    Ono Cut Piece performed in Tokyo, Kyoto, New York, and London 1964
    Kubota Vagina Painting 1964

    Beat Culture

    Kerouac, Book of Dreams, 1952
    Ferlinghetti, Vajra Lotus, 1960s

    Young poets and writers of the repressive cold war '50s cultivated the notion of an underground, based on counter-readings of commodified, mainstream, "square" American culture. They turned to models of spirituality drawn from the East, just as Asian artists turned to models of individual freedom coming from the West. "Beat" signified both beaten down, and beatific.

    Jess, Tricky Cad, 1959
    Berman, Untitled, 1963

    Artists, too, began to investigate alternatives to mass culture. Young Californians in particular saw themselves as part of an underground, seeking alternative states of mind and unorthodox spiritualities.

    Allan Kaprow, Yard
    Claes Oldenburg, Store
    Claes Oldenburg, Plate of Meat
    Jim Dine, Green Suit
    Robert Morris, Site Performance

    Kaprow had studied with Cage in 57-58 and wrote the influential article on "The Legacy of Jackson Pollock," claiming the artist was now free from the shackles of specific genres and medium. "Happenings" burst into being with Kaprow's "Yard" (first shown in '57), followed by Oldenburg's "Store," Dine's "Car Crash," and other events. Morris's "Site" picked up on the more regulated and "formalist" happenings characteristic of mid-decade. Events from earlier in the decade were rougher and more improvisational (more "beat," in other words).

    George Brecht, Events,1961
    Fluxus Event, 1962
    Paik, Zen for Head, 1962

    George Brecht followed Kaprow's more "scripted" events and participated in the loosely organized international group that came to call itself "Fluxus." Before they were organized by George Maciunas (see below), these artists gathered for international festivals modelled on musical gatherings. Cagean "noise" and Pollockian gestures were on the menu, however.

    Maciunas, Fluxus Manifesto, 1949
    Fluxus, Warehouse, reconstruction, 1964
    Maciunas, Excreta, 1972
    Brecht, Repository, 1961

    Maciunas managed a razor-thin dialectic between anarchy and absolutism in his management of Fluxus; the aesthetics of Fluxus's mail-order offerings ranged from anal (literally) packagings (drawn from the early work of Brecht) to gentle and amusing toys for the mind.

    Schneeman, Meat Joy, 1964
    Schneeman, Fluxus Statement, 1964
    Ono, Cut Piece, 1964

    Women found themselves simultaneously welcomed and constrained by the international performance groups. Their works immediately began to interrogate the politics of gender and sexuality that were then emerging as key issues in the reborn feminist movement.