Page "Happening" Paragraph 6

Kaprow ’ s piece 18 Happenings in 6 Parts ( 1959 ) is commonly cited as the first happening, although that distinction is sometimes given to a 1952 performance of Theater Piece No. 1 at Black Mountain College by John Cage, one of Kaprow's teachers in the mid-1950s.

Cage stood reading from a ladder, Charles Olson read from another ladder, Robert Rauschenberg showed some of his paintings and played wax cylinders of Édith Piaf on an Edison horn recorder, David Tudor performed on a prepared piano and Merce Cunningham danced.

All these things took place at the same time, among the audience rather than on a stage.

Happenings flourished in New York City in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Key contributors to the form included Carolee Schneemann, Red Grooms, Robert Whitman, Jim Dine Car Crash, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Delford Brown, Lucas Samaras, and Robert Rauschenberg.

Some of their work is documented in Michael Kirby's book Happenings ( 1966 ).

Interestingly, Kaprow claimed that " some of us will become famous, and we will have proven once again that the only success occurred when there was a lack of it ".

( New Media Reader, p 87 )