{"id":173,"date":"2009-10-04T20:50:09","date_gmt":"2009-10-04T20:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/wp\/?p=173"},"modified":"2011-09-04T18:06:53","modified_gmt":"2011-09-04T22:06:53","slug":"allan_kaprow_the_retread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artopia\/2009\/10\/allan_kaprow_the_retread.html","title":{"rendered":"Allan Kaprow: The Retread"},"content":{"rendered":"

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William Pope.L,YARD<\/span><\/i><\/em> (To Harrow), 2009<\/span>; <\/em>“reinvention” of Allan Kaprow’sYARD<\/span><\/i>,<\/em> 1961<\/span><\/p>\n

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Part One: Art By the Yard<\/font><\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n

Allan Kaprow’s Yard, <\/i>now in its 15<\/font>th<\/font><\/sup> reincarnation, celebrates the new quarters (32 E. 69<\/font>th<\/font><\/sup> St.) of Hauser & Wirth, formerly only of Zurich and London. From beyond the grave, Kaprow (1927-2006) is still posing questions of authority, authorization, and notions of the artist as author rather than maker.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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The Hauser & Wirth exhibition (to Oct. 24) is by our esteemed forebearer because the gallery has commissioned three celebratory reinventions of his historic environment. There is also an entire room of documents. This is the kind of exhibition that in a better world we might expect a museum to launch. But a gallery can turn on a dime; museums take years to come up with their usually boring, unimaginative exhibitions. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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If we delve a bit into Kaprow’s post-Happenings oeuvre<\/span>, we see that the inauguration of what he called “reinventions” was both a solution and an ongoing problematic. He allowed and perhaps required the reinvention rather than the re-creation of his “activities” and his ephemeral sculptures such as Yard<\/i> (1961) or Fluids<\/i> (1967), the outdoor structure made of — and to be remade of —  <\/span>blocks of ice. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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What is important about Kaprow is that he actually accomplished what the wimpy postmodernist academics of the past three decades never actually did — or did in word only. He de-centered art. And I don’t mean he decentered it by moving to California to take advantage of teaching opportunities.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Which he did do. Which he could do, because he was famous, even only as the inventor of Happenings.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Allan Kaprow:<\/strong>18 Happenings in 6 Parts <\/em>(detail), 1959. <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

Kaprow playing musical instrument.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Part Two<\/strong>: California, Here I Come<\/o:p><\/b><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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In the past I have found fault with the “activities” because they suggest the therapeutic, and to this day I am wary of Kaprow’s exploitation of participation and collaboration.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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For instance, here is a short section of an activities score for Match<\/i>, 1975:<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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(in light)       <\/span>A and B. silently exchanging<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

    <\/span>                <\/span>each other’ others clothes<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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                    <\/span>continuing exchanging<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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                    <\/span>until clocked signals<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

                    <\/span>15 minutes have passed<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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(in dark)       <\/span>A. and B. lying on floor<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

              <\/span>on opposites side of room<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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              <\/font>A.<\/font>     <\/span>occasionally saying<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

                     <\/span>“It’s a perfect fit.”<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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              <\/span>B. precisely copying A.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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                     <\/span>until clock signals<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

                     <\/span>30 minutes have passed<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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I am, however, relieved that his papers have ended up in the archives of the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. That, not some museum, is the major repository of his work. A 2008 traveling exhibition called “Allan Kaprow: Art and Life” seems to have been mostly drawn from the Archive, and indeed the accompanying tome weaves together ephemera, media manifestations, photos and scripts; it is an invaluable resource.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Provisos notwithstanding, Kaprow is, as he hoped to be, Jackson Pollock’s true successor — not those painters of merely pleasing paintings that critic Clement Greenberg pushed. In Kaprow’s hands (sic<\/i>), theater became a positive value once again. He is also the legitimate successor to de Kooning, whether he would have liked that or not. Without Action Painting and de Kooning’s violent expressionism there would not be messy Happenings, messy Environments.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Now, however, Kaprow seems merely the heir of Futurist and Dada “theater” and even Surrealist games and installations. It was not that these precedents were off his radar, but at the time they weren’t a well-considered aspect of the art discourse. Happenings and other time-based inventions have nowadays made them essential.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Kaprow accomplished this antiformalist but not necessarily antimodernist coup by finding new heroes, such as composer John Cage, and in spite of his friendships with Pop artists, by going against the grain of received art-world wisdom. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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That is why he had little or no critical support. How could he? He was not yet even indirectly tied to the art market. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Painter Fairfield Porter, then a critic, wrote in the Nation about Kaprow’s first  <\/span>Happening, called 18 Happenings in 6 Parts<\/i>, staged at the artist-run Reuben Gallery in 1959:<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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If he wants to prove that certain things can’t be done again because they have already been done, he couldn’t be more convincing…The “Eighteen Happenings” devalue all art by a meaningless and deliberate surgery. And the final totality is without character; it never takes off from the sidewalk.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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In retrospect, one might think the painter Porter, who came to specialize in sunny porches and tidy domestic scenes, might have found some kinship with Kaprow’s valorization of the quotidian. Porter was a better writer than a painter. At his best he managed the startling plainness of dance critic Edwin Denby.  But he was, unlike Denby, a better writer than a critic.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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With a reception like Porter’s (who in person was a kindly man), it is no wonder Kaprow took pen to hand, not only to issue essays, now collected, but also in one case to write his own notice. <\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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On Jan. 12, 1961, the Village Voice published an over-the-transom piece by a certain Theodore Tucker headlined “An Apple Shrine at the Judson Gallery.” It was a review of Kaprow’s labyrinthine environment of chicken-wire and newspaper — written by the artist himself:<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Beneath the surface of each confrontation with the work is the doubt that it is art at all. There is a distrust and fear of an expression that is short-lived by intention. As though this were subtly calling upon death itself…. Far beyond the “Apple Shrine’s” actual content and humanity stands Kaprow’s inadvertent quarrel with all the vapid glories, qualities and eternities which we think are history.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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<\/span><\/font><\/font>Part Three: Re-Tiring<\/strong><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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The most direct reinvention of Yard<\/i> is at Hauser & Wirth itself and is a lookalike  <\/span>reenactment by William Pope.L, who titles his version YARD (To Harrow).<\/i> In this case, rented tires are jammed into the basement level of the building and not in the small courtyard out back, which had been the original site.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Allan Kaprow:Yard<\/em>, 1961<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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          Opening Reception, YARD<\/em>, 1961. Kaprow second from right.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Yes, it is entirely fitting that this is the H.&W. inaugural Big Apple foray. At this very same address, the first Yard <\/i>was the most attention-getting component of the Martha Jackson Gallery 1961 exhibition “Environments — Situations –Spaces.” There were also works by George Brecht, Jim Dine, Walter Gaudnek, AI, Claes Oldenburg, and Robert Whitman. Brecht’s piece, probably the only other work of lasting significance, was nearly the opposite of Yard<\/i>: the presentation of a single chair. Here is dance critic Jill Johnston’s description in her Village Voice summation:<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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George Brecht is always clean as a clipped wing, airy, cheerful and self-disappearing. He had a little white room just off the yard with a nice, white chair in it, comfortable for a Cape Cod porch…his first two statements [in the accompanying brochure] are A. nothing special; b. no theory.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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But more about Brecht later.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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FOUR: Yard Art<\/font><\/strong><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/h1>\n

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Vis-\u00e0-vis<\/span> <\/span>the original Yard<\/i>, I remember that a few statues were concealed by tarpaper and you could look down upon the entire tire pile from a gallery window on the second floor. <\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Now, deep inside the building in William Pope.L’s reinvention, black plastic covers a desk and all accoutrements. And there is a rack of very un-Kaprow body bags concealing manikins (according to the gallerina I spoke to) or ooze (according to the New York Times). Sound and on\/off lighting have been added, but to no effect. Visitors may sit on the tires, which is historically correct and shows Kaprow’s incorporation of audience participation. That the tires are not from 1961 is of no import. As we all know, used tires are eternal.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Pope.L’s redo is darker then the earlier, plainer version. Suffice it to say, aside from constructing ecological Earthship<\/a> homes out of old tires — for a million plus — we have still not figured out what to do with all those rubber tires filling up dumps around the globe.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Earthship <\/em>(Biotexture) ecological house made of used tires and other recycled materials.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Further afield, the second Hauser & Wirth commission was offered by Sharon Hayes. Referencing Kaprow’s image for an ancient Martha Jackson poster, an accumulation of handmade yard-sale signs were installed at the N.Y. Marble Cemetery on lower Second Avenue during the weekend of October 3<\/font> <\/o:p><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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The third reinvention was by Josiah McElheny. Offered at the Queens Museum of Art, YARD (Junk Yard)<\/i> was a gigantic projection of an aerial photo of the Iron Triangle junkyards of Queens, projected on the outside of the N.Y. Panorama (unfortunately only until Oct. 4). It was a breathtaking image, perfectly presented, and I searched for tires amid the wreckage. And found them.<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Josiah McElheny: YARD (Junk Yard), <\/em>2009<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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                                                                                 McElheney: YARD (Junk Yard), <\/em>detail<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

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Allan Kaprow preparing 18 Happenings in 6 Parts.<\/font><\/p>\n

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