With the invention of Happenings and Environments, Allan Kaprow embarked upon a career of intellectually rigorous, site-specific, and timed works that defied commoditization and ultimately gave birth to performance and installation art. His seminal work, _18 Happenings in 6 parts (_1959), an evening of seemingly random but carefully choreographed activities, required the participation of both the audience and the performers to complete the piece. "Life is much more interesting than art," Kaprow wrote. "The line between art and life should be kept as fluid, and perhaps indistinct, as possible."
Read MoreCentral to Kaprow's work was his concept of reinventions. As Kaprow explained, "I say reinventions, rather than reconstructions, because the works ... differ markedly from their originals. Intentionally so. As I wrote in notes to one of them, they were planned to change each time they were remade. This decision, made in the late 50s, was the polar opposite of the traditional belief that the physical art object—the painting, photo, music composition, etc.—should be fixed in a permanent form."
Text courtesy Hauser & Wirth.
