Word: kaprow
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...ALAN KAPROW dressed himself in black plastic, donned a World War I helmet, dubbed himself "The Neutron Kid," and set Southampton on its ear with a three-day Happening that included smoke bombs, sky divers and giant, helium-filled balloons. See MODERN LIVING...
...limousine. "It's certainly not Southampton," sniffed another. What was happening was a Happening-a combination of artists' ball, carnival, charade, and a Dadaesque version of the games some people play. The Neutron Kid, glowering through his full beard and dark glasses, was none other than Allan Kaprow, 38, the artist who seven years ago gave Happenings their name...
...Glue. For days the local newspapers had been full of the mock-solemn high jinks that Art Professor Kaprow, Sculptor Charles Frazier and CBS Producer Gordon Hyatt were concocting. The point, explained Kaprow, was to have a plan, but no rehearsal, no separation of audience and spectators. Just pick a theme, arrange the setting, and let things happen. For the Hamptons' Happening, which was to go on for three days, the theme was "Gas," in part because Kaprow & Co. intended to use a lot of helium for balloons...
There were paintings, sculpture, dance and music-of a sort. At the happenings that Kaprow and his colleagues staged, the "actors" splashed paint on canvas, played electronic John Cage music, danced like puppets with leaden strings, climbed up cardboard mountains, peeled oranges and clothes on stage. To get the audience into the act, they gave them newspapers to tear up, even ran their hands up female spectators' legs...
...uptown and out from New York as the newest novelty in party giving and fund raising. Society matrons talk glibly of happenings over cocktails; actors who have never seen one are beginning to stage them. Whereas the first happenings were planned down to the last syllable and step (one Kaprow script read: "Walks to within 3 ft. of person seated opposite, stops here for seven seconds"), the latter-day copies are undisciplined free-for-alls. Sex, once a piquant accent, is now a main course...