Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life.

The experimental artist today is the un-artist. Not the anti-artist but the artist emptied of art.

--Allan Kaprow

Julian Beck also played a significant role in the emergence of that quintessential art form of the 60s--the Happening. Deeply influenced by Jackson Pollock, Allan Kaprow, an artist and professor of art, had moved, in the 50s, from painting to assemblages to "action-collages." But increasingly dissatisfied with the rigid separation of art and viewer imposed by the gallery space, he began to create performances devoid of the traditional theatrical characteristics of plot, character, and overt theme. The intent was to demonstrate by activity that "every visitor to the environment was part of it." (Michael Kirby, Happenings) His earliest work in this genre, 18 Happenings in 6Parts, presented at the Reuben Gallery in 1959, gave a name to what would soon become a familiar form. At first Kaprow used artist friends in these experimental pieces, but, recognizing that, like it or not, he had created a form …