Beyond the Happening
Performance art and the politics of communication
By Catherine Spencer
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Click Here to Buy from Your Preferred BooksellerBook Information
- Format: Hardcover
- Pages: 296
- Price: £85.00
- Published Date: June 2020
- Series: Rethinking Art's Histories
Description
Beyond the Happening uncovers the heterogeneous, uniquely interdisciplinary performance-based works that emerged in the aftermath of the early Happenings. By the mid-1960s Happenings were widely declared outmoded or even 'dead', but this book reveals how many practitioners continued to work with the form during the late 1960s and 1970s, developing it into a vehicle for studying interpersonal communication that simultaneously deployed and questioned contemporary sociology and psychology. Focussing on the artists Allan Kaprow, Marta Minujín, Carolee Schneemann and Lea Lublin, it charts how they revised and retooled the premises of the Happening within a wider network of dynamic international activity. The resulting performances directly intervened in the wider discourse of communication studies, as it manifested in the politics of countercultural dropout, soft power and cultural diplomacy, alternative pedagogies, sociological art and feminist consciousness-raising.
Reviews
'Beyond the Happening is an insightful and enjoyable contribution to the study of art and communication with a fresh international approach. The book's outstanding illustrations make it a valuable archive piece for thought-provoking yet often overlooked artwork.'
Micaela G. Signorelli, Contemporary Theatre Review
Contents
Introduction: Communication studies
1 Allan Kaprow's lesson plans
2 Marta Minujín's sociability experiments
3 Carolee Schneemann's group work
4 Lea Lublin's exercises in denaturalisation
Conclusion: Breaching experiments and social bodies
Bibliography
Index
Author
Catherine Spencer is Lecturer in Art History at the University of St Andrews.