Happening

A happening is a theatrical event created by artists, originally in America in the late 1950s and early 1960s, that combined elements of visual art, theatre, music and everyday life in an unplanned or partly improvised action. Unlike a traditional performance, a happening usually had no clear plot, stage or division between actors and audience: participants often became co-creators of the event, drawn into actions, movement and immediate experience. The term was introduced and established by the American artist Allan Kaprow, who in 1959 staged an event in a New York gallery called 18 Happenings in 6 Parts. The origins of the genre lie in Dada, in the composer John Cage's ideas about chance and everyday sound, and in action painting. Happenings emphasised process, the body, immediacy and the unrepeatable nature of experience rather than the creation of a lasting object, which links them to ephemeral art. The genre was closely connected with the Fluxus movement and became an important precursor of performance as an independent art form. The happening radically expanded the boundaries of art, erasing the line between the artwork and life and between the artist and the public.