In this blog post, we will examine the message conveyed to us by happenism, an art form that emerged by breaking down the boundaries between life and art.
One day in 1952, contemporary musician John Cage gave a lecture at a university in the United States. John Cage is well known as a figure who boldly broke the traditional framework of music and art of his time and pursued new forms of expression. His experimental approach departed from traditional music composition and raised fundamental questions such as “What is sound? What is music?” He gave his lecture at the top of a ladder, and it consisted of long silences and dancing. This act turned the usual lecture format and content upside down and caused a huge reaction. His silence was not just silence. Through this moment, Cage wanted to emphasize how thin the boundary between sound and silence is, reflecting his philosophy that every moment can be music.
Another artist left 20 huge blocks of ice on the street to melt, showing the process of objects changing over time. The artist’s intention was to visually express the passage of time and the power of nature through the changes in the ice, and to convey to the audience the beauty of change that is easily overlooked in everyday life. Other examples include lipstick as tall as a building and electric plugs. What is the essence of this kind of art, which takes familiar things and makes them unfamiliar, and unfamiliar things familiar, sending people on a journey of imagination?
These artistic attempts are not merely intended to shock the viewer, but have the power to make us look at everyday objects and concepts in a new light. Through these works, artists present new frameworks of perception to the audience and encourage them to break away from fixed ways of thinking. The genre of happening literally shows “what is happening here and now.” It is improvised and uses visual and auditory materials as important tools of expression rather than words.
Improvisation is a key element of happenings, which emphasize the process of artists breaking away from pre-planned frameworks and following their inspiration in the moment. Through this process, the audience experiences art as a creative act with its own meaning and value, rather than a simple result. Performances are highly mobile, taking place in everyday spaces such as art galleries, streets, parks, markets, and kitchens, rather than closed theaters.
In addition, events and actions that are not logically connected are linked in a fragmented manner, making them strange and abstract. Dialogue is omitted or completely absent, and even words that pop up suddenly often have no special meaning. Through this, happenings argue that the pain and hope of our lives can no longer be conveyed through logical words. This nonverbal form of expression elicits emotional and intuitive responses from the audience rather than conveying a direct message. Happenings allow the audience to interpret the meaning through their own experiences, which is very different from the fixed interpretations provided by traditional works of art.
The concept of happenings is similar to collages in art and montages in film, and it also resonates with contemporary theater and popular music genres such as rap, which reveal the absurdity of life. Isn’t the fact that our lives are unique and not controlled by consistent logic a reflection of the close relationship between happenings and life itself? Ultimately, happenings break down the boundaries between art and life and show that life itself can be art. They make us realize that the messages conveyed by art are not only found in works of art, but also constantly occurring in our daily lives.
Happenings, which break down the walls between different art forms, have changed the role of the audience in traditional art. The performers do not serve the audience, but rather stimulate and tease them by shouting or throwing water at them. Performances do not take place in a specific location, but rather here and there, or even simultaneously in multiple locations, and the audience moves around following the action, seeing scenes from different perspectives. This can be said to be an attempt to involve the audience in the performance. In this way, happenings aim to break down the boundaries between life and art, and ultimately become a consciousness that intervenes in everyday life.
This participatory art makes the audience not just passive recipients, but part of the creative process, and in that process, the meaning of art expands. The audience is no longer passive, but becomes an active participant in creating the artistic experience. Furthermore, it rejects the idea of art as a symbolic commodity traded among a select few in the art market.
Happenings also resist the existing art convention of exhibiting and preserving completed works in museums. This emphasizes that art is not confined to a specific place or format, but is a free form of expression that can be open to anyone, anytime, anywhere. It conveys the message that the essence of art lies not in the permanence of the work, but in the experience and feelings of the moment.
Such artistic phenomena are not mere movements, but rather the practice of artists’ spiritual adventures. Happenings criticized conformity to conventional social institutions and sought to transform the fixed concept of art. Happenings emphasized chance events and individual self-consciousness, and were sometimes criticized for being incomprehensible. However, despite such criticism, happenings played an important role as a pioneer of art that explored new possibilities, broke existing frameworks, and promoted creative thinking. Nevertheless, these artistic adventures, which shake up our comfortable emotions in modern society and seek new relationships between life and art, will continue to expand the horizons of art in various ways.
