Allan Kaprow, 79; Artist’s ‘Happenings’ Broke New Ground in Expression
from the LA Times
Allan Kaprow, the artist who combined painting, sculpture and theater in flamboyant events that he staged in unexpected locations and referred to as “happenings,” has died. He was 79.
A founding member of the visual arts department at UC San Diego, Kaprow died of natural causes Wednesday at his home in Encinitas, his studio manager, Tamara Bloomberg, said this week.
As a young artist in the late 1950s, Kaprow was influenced by Abstract Expressionist painters who moved around their vast canvases to pour and drip paint. He took the idea further by leading observers directly into the artwork, eliminating canvas and display walls.
He staged his happenings in industrial lofts, empty storefronts and other unlikely places and wrote about the events and the ideas behind them in magazine articles and his 1993 book “Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life.”
He compared happenings to mime, circus acts, carnivals and Dada art, as well as theater.
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