Emerging from the live performances and spectacles of Dada and Surrealism, Happenings were events created by artists in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Allan Kaprow coined the term when he used it in the title of his 1959 work, 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, which called for the audience to carry out specific actions in an environment he staged. Happenings were the forerunners of performance art, in which the focus shifted away from audience participation and increasingly toward the actions of the artist.
Happenings
4 examples
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Philip Corner, Emmett Williams, George Maciunas, Benjamin Patterson, Dick Higgins, Alison Knowles Philip Corner's Piano Activities, performed by Philip Corner, George Maciunas, Emmett Williams, Benjamin Patterson, Dick Higgins, and Alison Knowles during Fluxus Internationale Festpiele Neuester Musik, Hörsaal des Städtischen Museums, Wiesbaden, Germany, September 1, 1962 1962
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Yoko Ono Bag Piece (1964), performed during Perpetual Fluxfest, Cinematheque, New York, June 27, 1965 1965
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Allan Kaprow How to Make a Happening 1966
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Yayoi Kusama, Harry Shunk, János Kender The Anatomic Explosion, New York 1968