Tag Archives: instructions

Inhabiting Allan Kaprow’s Push and Pull

5 Replies

kaprow push pull instructions
[Excerpt from instructions page at Kaprow’s Push and Pull. The full text of the instructions is available online here, or for the typewriter/paper feel, read them here.]

Creative Time organised a presentation of Allan Kaprow’s Push and Pull: A Furniture Comedy for Hans Hofmann, during the Performa Festival. It ran for three days at a space called Passerby.

Push and Pull is a dynamic installation in which anyone can come and rearrange furniture which is spread around in a room. Well, we might call it an installation now, but in Kaprow’s day (the piece was first presented in 1963) it was a “Happening” (or an “Environment”). It’s clear that Kaprow, in the four years since 18 Happenings in 6 Parts was presented, had substantially reworked his idea of what a Happening should be. If 18 Happenings in 6 Parts was a sort of experimental theatre involving specially prepared “actors”, then by the time he devised Push and Pull, Kaprow had moved on to creating situations where the “audience” was now the primary activator of the work.
Continue reading →

Kaprow’s Fluids (1967)

FLUIDS
A HAPPENING BY
ALLAN KAPROW

DURING THREE DAYS, ABOUT TWENTY
RECTANGULAR ENCLOSURES OF ICE
BLOCKS (MEASURING ABOUT 30
FEET LONG, 10 WIDE AND 8
HIGH) ARE BUILD THROUGHOUT
THE CITY. THEIR WALLS ARE
UNBROKEN. THEY ARE LEFT TO MELT

-THOSE INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING SHOULD ATTEND A PRELIMINARY MEETING AT THE PASADENA ART MUSEUM, 46 NORTH LOS ROBLES AVENUE, PASADENA, AT 8.30PM, OCTOBER 11 10, 1967. THE HAPPENING WILL BE THOROUGHLY DISCUSSED BY ALLAN KAPROW AND ALL DETAILS WORKED OUT.

[-poster for FLUIDS (1967) – from the funny old book Adrian Henri, Total Art: Environments, Happenings, and Performance, Praeger, New York, 1974, p97]

[Update November 27, 2007: Fluids was remade at the Performa Festival in NYC in 2007. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend that event, but I have written about Push and Pull, and 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, which were also recreated during Performa.]

instructional artworks

in preparation for a workshop accompanying the erwin wurm show at the mca, i am compiling a few links for "DO IT YOURSELF" and/or instructional artworks.

the DO IT manual:
http://www.e-flux.com/projects/do_it/manuals/0_manual.html

and erwin wurm's contribution with some cute drawings:
http://www.e-flux.com/projects/do_it/manuals/artists/w/W002/W002.html

101 Art Ideas You Can Do Yourself, by Rob Pruitt:
http://www.e-flux.com/projects/pruitt/index.php3?num=1

fluxus performance workbook, compiled by Ken Friedman, Owen Smith and Lauren Sawchyn (315kb pdf document, to download right click the link and "save target as" or "save link as"):
http://www.performance-research.net/documents/fluxus_workbook_print.pdf

any suggestions to add to this list welcome!
………….
update:
margie suggests:

Henry Bursill's Hand Shadows To Be Thrown Upon The Wall [Originally published by Griffith and Farran in 1859!!]:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12962/12962-h/12962-h.htm

and also from Margie:
assignments galore (and they're fun) from Miranda July et al:
http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/index2.php

allan kaprow student experiments

…from page 60 of “Allan Kaprow”, Corso Superiore Arte Visiva, Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Skira, 1998, Milano.

1.
Find a comfortable place and sit down. Choose someone from among the people you can see and observe him/her.
Copy his/her position, movements, etc, exactly.

2.
Split into three groups. Each group must try to push three different types of materials towards a given point.
Use only the power of your breath.

3.
Choose a partner.
Pinch him/her and then let him/her in turn pinch you.
Check the increase in temperature of the part of skin pinched.

4.
Arrange into small groups.
One person volunteers to be completely passive.
The others must push him in directions they consider to be right.
Having first agreed among themselves.

5.
Choose a dirty mark.
Try to clean it using your saliva and one or more Q-tips.

6.
Choose a partner.
One of the pair draws a line on the ground in chalk. The other partner must follow the line close behind and erase it until either the eraser or the chalk is completely worn out.

7.
Choose a partner.
Observe your partner’s mouth in a mirror and copy his/her expressions.
Each time, move further away, one pace at a time.
Stop when you are too far away to see each other.

8.
Sit on a chair.
Wait for a partner to rest his/her brow on your knee.
Exchange heat.
If you want, swap places and repeat.

9.
Find a place inside.
Moisten a finger and blow on it until it is dry.
Moisten it again and wait until it has dried by itself.

10.
Choose a partner.
Cover your head with a sheet of newspaper.
Breath in and hold for as long as possible.
Stop when the sensation of warm damp becomes unpleasant.

11.
Split into groups.: those who wear glasses and those who don’t.
Those who do not wear glasses mist up the lenses of those who do.
Those who wear glasses must then give the glasses to those who don’t.
Repeat the procedure.

12.
Form a line.
A boy/girl will give you a cold kiss and a warm kiss on each cheek.
Try to spot the difference.

13.
Take a paper handkerchief.
Place it over your mouth.
All walk, starting from the same line.
Hold your breath or breath in until the handkerchief falls.

Allan Kaprow’s “Moving”

4 Replies

MOVING
A HAPPENING BY ALAN KAPROW
(FOR MILAN KNIZAK)

SOME UNUSED HOUSES IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE CITY. ON EACH OF 4 DAYS, OLD FURNITURE IS OBTAINED AND IS PUSHED THROUGH THE STREETS TO THE HOUSES. THE FURNITURE IS INSTALLED.

ON THE FIRST DAY, BEDROOMS ARE FURNISHED, AND SLEPT IN THAT NIGHT.

ON THE SECOND DAY, DINING ROOMS ARE FURNISHED, AND A MEAL IS EATEN.

ON THE THIRD DAY, LIVING ROOMS ARE FURNISHED, AND GUESTS ARE INVITED TO COCKTAILS.

ON THE FOURTH DAY, ATTICS ARE FILLED AND THEIR DOORS ARE LOCKED.

THOSE INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING SHOULD MEET AT 8PM NOV 27 1967 AT THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART, CHICAGO.

-from poster displayed in Warhol's Time Capsule show at the NGV.