Claes Oldenburg
  • DVD
  • black-and-white
  • approx. 2 hours (silent)
  • edition size unknown
  • unsigned and unnumbered

Claes Oldenburg "Happenings" : Ray Gun Theater - 1962 A Film by Raymond Saroff

Claes Oldenburg, Raymond Saroff

Claes Oldenburg

description

A DVD edition of the film of Claes Oldenburg's performance "Ray Gun Theater," 1962, by Raymond Saroff. "Early in 1962 Claes Oldenburg offered a remarkable series of ten 'Happenings' in a store on East Second Street in New York City. The audiences were kept small to heighten the intimacy of the experience. What is a 'Happening'? It would seem impossible to describe afterwards. Yet Raymond Saroff compressed the rich and sprawling imagery of each evening-length work to the essential matter in hand, reassembling a visual realization of what was seemingly consigned to the memories of its audience. All the characterizations, the unprepared transitions, the very personal rhythms with something of Saroff's own: the 'Happenings' impact on a sensitive eye, its reduction to a single and coherent point of view." -- Howard Rose (1962) Featuring Claes Oldenburg, Pat Oldenburg, Lucas Samaras, Carolee Schneemann, Jackie Ferrara, Billy Kluver, Lette Eisenhauer, Johanna Lawrenson, Jean-Jacques Lebel, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Irene Fornes, John Weber, and others in ten different performances: "Store Days I & II", "Nekropolis I & II", "Injun I & II", "Voyages I & II", and "World's Fair I & II." Note that Oldenburg disdains the term "Happening" and prefers "Performance" in regards to his performative works.

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