Happenings: New York 1958-1963
by: Glimcher, Mildred L.

Hardcover. New York, Monacelli Press , 1st, 2012, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: None, 320 pages. Hardcover without dust jacket. Extensive b&w and color photography throughout. Illustrated end papers and fly leafs. Includes extensive bibliography and chronology. Clean, tight copy. In early October 1959, thirty-two-year-old Allan Kaprow presented a performance piece entitled "18 Happenings in 6 Parts." This unique conjunction of visual, aural, and physical events, performed for an intimate art world audience by his friends and colleagues, would change the course of art history. The genre of artwork that evolved from this debut would become known as Happenings. This new volume provides a comprehensive look at this revolutionary art form. Prepared in conjunction with an exhibition at the Pace Gallery in New York, it focuses on the years that saw the movement's birth in New York and Provincetown, Mass., and the artists who made the genre a legend: Red Grooms, Allan Kaprow, Robert Whitman, Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg, Simone Forti, Carolee Schneemann. Together, they created a new and outrageous art form with an "anything goes" attitude, one whose influence is still felt within the contemporary art world.