Analysis of Three Aspects of Happenings and Discussion of Their Impact on Contemporary Art

Analyse three aspects of Happenings and discuss their impact on contemporary art.

‘Making something happen.’ (Lang, 2019) Happenings across Europe and America have had a huge impact on contemporary art and artists today such as London based contemporary artist Anne Hardy. Happenings began in the 1960’s and aimed to merge art and life whilst also taking inspiration from different artists and ‘various types of emancipation of the body’ (Bishop 2009). American and European happenings were rather different than one another for various reasons such as: Americas score- like performances and the strong influence from artists’ Cage and Jackson Pollock. European happenings were unscored and were mainly influenced by Dada and Surrealism. One of the main aims of happenings was to eliminate the audience and mix both the art and the viewer together so the process, participant and ‘artwork’ was the final piece. Happenings sprang from the counterculture movement of the 1960’s giving happenings an inherent political undertone. During the 1960’s this movement opposed the Vietnam war and supported women’s rights and the sexual revolution.

Overtime the term happening has been used less and less but the very core of happenings continues to present themselves in many contemporary artists work. The decline in the use of the term happening, coined by Alan Kaprow, was due to the fact that Kaprow believed that during the 1960’s it became commercialised and no longer represented what he desired it to. A contemporary artist that has been inspired by the happening’s movement is Anne Hardy. From this she has created a large range of artworks she has called ‘Field works. These are audio and sculptural installation pieces which are immersive sensory experiences blurring the lines between participant and artwork this can be seen in her piece Two joined Fields, 2013. This artwork is a structure created from wood and plasterboard which contains various differently shaped objects made from concrete. This piece of art is inspired by happenings in many ways such as the fact that the participants and viewers of the piece are commanded when they enter the space to take off their shoes in order for them to connect with the sensory environment and to make them more vulnerable. This command links to Allan Kaprow’s original template of the happening and its score like nature allowing the audience to participate in the art but guiding them on how to do so. This contemporary artwork is evidently an example of artists mixing the viewer of the art with the artwork itself as is proved when Hardy stated “Gallery guards said you can’t believe what I saw yesterday there was a sixteen year old girl weightlifting with your concrete I cant believe things like this happened and he was shocked because it was a gallery and you know he said people know you shouldn’t touch things in a gallery and that’s true but in another way I was quite thrilled with that reaction because the fact that she had done that meant that she had totally embrace it, I know she didn’t think she was in the Hayward Gallery anymore.” (Hardy 2019)