This is a synopsis of an interview with George Segal and Allan Kaprow, two artists who use art and arts surroundings as the development of a new and participatory medium. The beginning of the interview goes back to their roots as painters and how they evolved towards their current works. The focus then changes a bit to how spectators are involved with the spaces, in terms of how they act and where their movement is restricted to. Kaprow goes on to describe the three umbrella guidelines for Happenings: theatre, ideas, and participation. Theatre is similar to theatre, ideas is when the consumer is forced to think about certain concepts subjectively, and participatory Happenings are when different activities of scale and length are agreed upon and then interwoven throughout life’s other activities. Lastly, the artists speak of the use of sound in their pieces as well as draw comparisons between environmentals and other 20th century works (which fall short in their eyes and mine). One quote that particularly struck me in this piece was made by Segal: “Happenings are difficult as the devil to photograph because very often the cameraman was not a good enough artist. Or was the artist not strong enough to make that image apparent?” I like that quote because it shows how aware Segal is of the risk in “artworks” like these to defy ranking, but still there are some that are somehow better (either in construction, intent, overall cohesion, or whatever) works than others.
Environments & Happenings
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