Page 59 - Studio International - September 1966

Henry Geldzahler of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (in the photograph opposite he is participating
in Washes), recently discussed his own reactions to Happenings in an interview with Edward Lucie-Smith:

I love doing it and I find that it is massively satisfying formal contact. It's really amazing to watch Claes
If I'm in a Happening then I'm a much better person because he will tell you to do something in the
to be with for at least ten days afterwards. I suppose Happening and you say, 'I don't want to do that',
from a personal point of view it's a kind of group and he'll say 'O.K., then do the other thing,'—which
therapy. But that's rather the writer's side of it. I do you want to do. But no matter what you do you end
think that in the early sixties some of the most up doing something very much like Claes would
interesting manifestations in New York were Claes want you to do. So that a really strong personality
Oldenburg's, Bob Whitman's and Jim Dine's such as Oldenburg's or Whitman's can control even
Happenings. an enormous cast—and in the New York Under-
ground a cast of twenty has to be considered a cast
What do you think is the special quality of of thousands. We used props and we used each
Happenings? other in ways that corresponded very closely to
I think it's a theatre by artists, basically. It was the artist Oldenburg's sensibility.
realizing the impossibility of returning to the figure in
any kind of way that wasn't repeating something that Would you say Happenings were very closely
had already previously been done better; realizing connected with the idea of the environment?
that Pop art, though just on the verge of coming Yes, the environment is static—you make a room and
into its own, was not yet usable; suddenly realizing somebody walks into it. In the Happening the room
that if he could not represent the human being then moves around you and you observe another way of
he could use the human being. doing it. And Oldenburg attempts to treat the person,
the individual, very much as an object with free will.
But what has happened now that Happenings are
done according to recipes? I mean, you can buy a Do you think this sort of thing has roots in Dada,
fistful. for example?
I had a bit of a letter-exchange with Claes Oldenburg It has roots all over the place. Theoretically, of course,
because I sent him a copy of my piece on Happen- the strongest roots are in John Cage's writings and
ings, saying that a lot of the energy had gone out of teachings. And the course he gave in composition
them. He answered rather sharply that he felt I was at The New School here in New York in the late
taking the general attitude, and that the Happenings fifties—which was attended by Allan Kaprow, who
done last spring—he was part of the New York was the first theoretician of Happenings and did
Theatre Rally—were quite interesting. I couldn't tell. what was, I presume, the first or second Happening.
I suspect the only really interesting one was Olden-
burg's. But I was floating around in a raft and wearing You occupy a slightly odd position in the New York
a bathrobe during this Happening, so I was really in art world. As I understand it you're both an Estab-
no position to judge. lishment figure and an 'underground' figure. What
are the satisfactions?
Do you think this is something that can be done in A very enriched life, and an ability to move around
England? All the English attempts at Happenings New York rather easily. The difficulties are that if
seemed rather self-conscious and embarrassing. one's much too far 'underground' then the rather
Yes, I think nobody's really clearly understood the official museum I work for becomes worried, chary-
relationship between the scenario and the Happen- whatever the expression is. On the other hand, if I
ing. Having been in half a dozen Happenings—in become too official, then the 'underground' seems
New York most of them were for Claes Oldenburg—I to look at me askance. I think, or I hope, I do it
think I can say they are not something totally instinctively; yet I do what I want to do at the time
unplanned and spontaneous and unruly. Claes has a I want to do it. For instance, I was in this swimming-
shape in mind, and everything Claes does, whether pool Happening of Oldenburg's and the director of
it's a hamburger or a Happening involving twenty the museum here found out. His reaction was that
people, ends up having a total configuration of his he was sorry he hadn't been invited.