A Spring Happening
  • poster
  • offset-printed
  • black-and-white
  • 27.5 x 43.2 cm.
  • [2] pp.
  • edition size unknown
  • unsigned and unnumbered

A Spring Happening

Allan Kaplan

A Spring Happening

description

Poster / flyer published in conjunction with happening held March 22 - 27, 1961. Recto features drawing by Kaprow with verso contains text announcing the work.

"In one of the more sinister examples [of Kaprow''''s Happenings], A Spring Happening (1961), the small audience was packed into a narrow crate with slits cut at eye level through which could be seen, among other things, a nude and nervous young woman being chased by a spotlight. Unexpected events, at best partially visible from inside the dark crate, were triggered by flashing lights or sudden noises. Heavy objects were dropped on the low roof of the crate; a giant industrial fan blocked the exit. The audience was trapped until the finale, when, just in time, the walls came crashing down. This piece is often discussed in relation to the notion of ''''rebirth''''—a mythic, even epiphanic reading of a piece in which the audience, cued by lights, bells, bangs, giant fans, and so on, is shunted through a sequence of alogical, non-matrixed, and compartmental events—an experiential maze. Attendees recall the smell of fear—Kaprow himself admits he was interested in this as an element. The imagery— no, the actuality—of confinement, as well as the assaultive violence of the audience''''s "liberation" by a roaring lawnmower, has as much to do with behaviorist experiments or with the imagery of the Holocaust as it does with any notion of ''''rebirth.'''' -- Judith Rodenbeck, "Madness and Method: Before Theatricality," published in Grey Room, no. 13 (Fall 2003), pp. 59.

references

"Happenings : An Illustrated Anthology" by Michael Kirby, Jim Dine, Red Grooms, Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Whitman. New York, NY : E.P Dutton & Co., Inc., 1966, pp. 92 - 104.
"Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life" by Allan Kaprow, Jeff Kelley. Berkeley / Los Angeles / London, CA / United Kingdom : University of California Press, pp. 17.
"Childsplay : The Art of Allan Kaprow" by Jeff Kelley. Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, 2004, pp. 55 - 59, 57, 58, 64, 220.
"Allan Kaprow : Art As Life" by Eva Meyer-Hermann, Andrew Perchuk, Stephanie Rosenthal, Paul Schimmel, Alex Potts, Glenn Phillips, Annette Leddy. Los Angeles, CA / NY : Getty Research Institute, 2008, pp. 141.
No. 8a / 8b in "Allan Kaprow : Posters" by Oscar Tuazon, Christophe Daviet-Thery, Alice Dusapin, Steve Roden. Paris / London, France / United Kingdom : &: Christophe Daviet-Thery / Koenig Books, 2014, pp. 11, 44, 82.
New York, NY: Reuben Gallery,
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$2,500.00
Condition:  Fair / Good. Hand addressed mailed copy with mailing marks and mailing wear. Moderate overall aging to newsprint. Multiple areas of tearing and loss to poster edges. Losses measure 1.2 cm., 2.1 cm., 6 mm., 3.5 cm., 1.1 cm. 2 mm. and 4 mm. Tears measure 3 mm., 3 mm., 5 mm., 6.2 cm., 1.3 cm., 1 cm. with additional small tears. Folded in sixths.
[Object # 24435]