Friday, February 4, 2011

Happening

Allan Kaprow's philosophy of art is unique and bold. Using event that is happening as a form of art is somewhat similar to performing art in my mind. However, he's different from lots of performing artist like Marina Abramavic. His way of presenting the art piece is to get the audiences involved and to let them be the part of the piece thus people would understand the essence of the piece while they are in the it. Nam June Paik's TV sculpture is also really avant-garde. The idea of creating an art form that is cybernetic seems obscure yet he successfully present it in front of the audiences. By combining videos with live performances, Nam June Paik managed to articulate his style.

Nam June Paik's TV sculpture
Last Friday, me and Kanesha did the green screen testing. It went pretty amazing actually. We figured out that all we have to do left is to get rid of the green edge in the video and to build a dolley. This project is happening and we might document the processes.

Here's a video of Allan Kaprow's style piece in NYC.

4 comments:

  1. I was really fascinated with Kaprow's concept of involving the audience in his artwork. I like how he erases the line between the audience and the artist. However, what concerns me is that if his main goal is to transform the audience into becoming the artist, then does Kaprow still remain the artist of that artwork once the audience gets involved?
    For example, in one of this works, like the "Household, women licking jam off of a car," Kaprow allows the participants to lick the jam off, and create their own masterpiece all by themselves. All Kaprow does is create the "happening" or the routine and give instructions to the participants. However, does that really make him an artist then? Or is he just a guide to the participants, who then become the actual artists?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Audience interaction seems to a large part of happenings, and it is interesting how different artists such as Nam June Paik and Allan Kaprow incorporate this into their works. Despite having different styles and subject matters, both of these artists still maintain this main trait of their work, allowing audience influence.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It is very important for artist to engage their audience one way or the other in the works. For it is that relationship that helps sustain one's career as an artist and we can see this in both Paik And Kaprow's work something I believed added much to their success aside their own style and approach to performance art.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Kaprow inviting the audience to become participants and to complete the art is still a big step and maybe even harder today when liability insurance and having total control seems a big part of social situations.

    ReplyDelete