Yergens 1

Molly Yergens

Laurel Sparks

AIB MFA Semester 1

1 March 2011

Gallery, Schmallery:
Happenings and Earthworks, Institutional Critique in Postwar America

When Artists Allan Kaprow and Robert Smithson purposefully distanced their work from

the limitations and conventions associated with a museum or gallery context, they created

another version of the isolation and confinement they could not escape.

It is necessary to consider the historical context of both Kaprow and Smithson‟s work in

Postwar America. Modernism emphasized the purity and spiritual nature of the art object and the

art world was very much isolated to the sterile, white walls of New York City art galleries and

museums. Kaprow acted against these conventions by blurring the boundaries of art and

authentic life experience. Like the beat poets of his generation, Smithson ventured westward, far

away from the city, and literally brought art into and onto the land.

Earthworks and Happenings are the two innovative art forms attributed to these artists.

They offer avant-garde art experiences outside the confines of a museum or gallery. In a

published dialogue between the two artists, Kaprow entertains the analogy of museum as

mausoleum: “Museums tend to make increasing concessions to the idea of art and life as being

related. What‟s wrong with their version is that they provide canned life, an anesthetized

illustration of life. „Life‟ in the museum is like making love in a cemetery” (Smithson 44). The
 Yergens 2

topic of institutional critique was not only prevalent in the writing of both Kaprow and Smithson,

It was embodied in their work.

Kaprow‟s Happenings emphasize a merging of art and life by providing bizarre

interactive experiences, often far removed from any formal art institution. Happenings were

often spontaneous or underpublicized events that were often interactive and impermanent. Due to

the “experiential” quality of the work, documentation was not emphasized (Molesworth 44). In

1959, a limited number of posters and fliers circulated for “18 Happenings in 6 Parts.”

Admission to the event was free and by reservation only. Kaprow essentially restructured a

museum-like experience by orchestrating an art event like a social gathering in an alternative

space; thereby doing more to redefine what constitutes a gallery, than escaping the gallery

altogether.

An excerpt from the inside cover of Days Off: A Calendar of Happenings by Allan

Kaprow (1970) suggested that the misinformation resulting from poor documentation of the

Happenings was not unwelcome: “Photos and programs of such events are leftover thoughts in

the form of gossip. And gossip is also play. For anybody. As the calendar is discarded like the

happenings, the gossip may remain in action” (Meyer-Hermann). The environment itself was the

art form and the residual gossip was fascinating and appropriate. Kaprow fed off of this

unpredictability. The work took on a life of its own and this organic evolution distanced it from

its artificial, museum-based contemporaries.

Smithson‟s site-specific Earthworks were as far removed from gallery and museum

spaces as possible. In Smithson‟s essay, “Cultural Confinement” he describes museums as

prisons: “The function of the warden-curator is to separate the artworks from the outside world”
 Yergens 3

(Smithson 248). It could be argued that by placing Earthworks in a desolate, uninhabited region

of the American West, Smithson separated his work even more from the world. By creating this

dialectic between material and site, Smithson made it virtually impossible for most people to

experience the work directly. “A work of art when placed in a gallery loses its charge, and

becomes a portable object or surface disengaged with the outside world” (Smithson 248).

Although the artwork has a direct physical relationship with the landscape, it is far removed from

civilization. The only way one can experience it is through a piece of photographic

documentation and the words accompanying it.

Spiral Jetty, the most famous of Smithson‟s Earthworks is located a few thousand miles

away from New York City in the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Not only is Spiral Jetty particularly

difficult to find, requiring elaborate directions and uncertain adventures off the beaten path,

depending on annual precipitation, it is usually submerged in the lake and can only be visually

experienced through photographic and filmic documentation from 1970 (Shapiro 5).

Galleries and museums certainly alter one‟s experience of art. Curatorial restrictions may

influence the way in which the work is presented and art historical context may change the way

in which the work is interpreted. However, substituting first-hand experience of an artwork with

photographic documentation and written descriptions introduces a new set of limitations.

Two-dimensional documetation of places and events, ineffective verbal descriptions and

distorted accounts of first hand experiences create a distance between artwork and viewer.

Conversely, photography extends the art world‟s influence in the form of art books, exhibition

catalogues, and magazines. Its purpose is documentation as well as dissemination.

 Yergens 4

In the case of Hans Namuth‟s photographs of Jackson Pollock, the photographic

documentation of the artist at work changes our interpretation of Pollock‟s paintings and

ultimately enhances our appreciation of them. If Namuth‟s photographs of Pollock were never

seen, would Pollock‟s work be as art historically significant? Photography exposed the

performative aspects of Pollock‟s process. The paintings became artifacts of a heroic act

performed by a celebrity, not exclusively sacred art objects. (Rose) Namuth‟s photographs give

viewers a deeper appreciation for the Pollock paintings they encounter at the museum. The

mythology created by the photographs makes the actual art objects more sacred.

Kaprow relished the idea of an intimate crowd of participants and the unpredictable

spread of rumors that might ensue. Smithson was more interested in the artwork‟s relationship

with nature than its relationship with its viewer. Perhaps Earthworks and Happenings were more

like philosophical and sociological experiments that were doomed to be confined to text books

and art history lectures. In the case of Happenings and Earthworks, the existence of a material

artifact is not necessary to perpetuate its mythology. The public‟s inability to experience the

work first hand is not problematic.

If succumbing to the limits imposed by galleries and museums is like artistic

imprisonment, Kaprow and Smithson are skirting the law. In her essay “Museum as Mediation”

Eva Meyer-Hermann addresses the challenges that accompanied the task of curating an “Art as

Life”, an Allan Kaprow museum retrospective. The idea of showcasing the work of either

Kaprow or Smithson in a gallery setting seems a bit paradoxical. The author also suggests that

Kaprow himself was aware of this ideological dilemma. Kaprow even wrote an anti-institutional

disclaimer in a museum catalog for a 1967 museum exhibition of Happenings, in which he

reasserts his distaste for the art establishment and insists once again that a museum is an
 Yergens 5

inappropriate venue for experiencing his work (Meyer-Hermann 76). Is such an institutional

presence unavoidable? Curator Eva Meyer-Hermann explains that, “Kaprow had no desire to do

away with museums altogether; he thought that they had their place for art from the past,

including his early work, which had been made as „gallery art‟. Moreover, museums occasionally

provided opportunities and funding for his works” (Meyer-Hermann 75). Did Kaprow‟s genuine

desire to preserve his life‟s work make it difficult for him to completely resist involvement with

art institutions? Despite its limitations, the museum‟s role as an effective teaching tool is

undeniable.

Allan Kaprow and Robert Smithson made bold artistic statements by refusing to

participate in the art world in a conventional way. By evading incarceration in the institution,

they confined themselves to a specific role in art history, one which is reliant on mythology

rather than the presence of sacred objects. Ironically, the work of both artists is concurrently

dependent upon and distorted by photographic documentation and other methods of preservation

and communication. This emphasizes an unavoidable, incomplete connection between artist and

viewer.
 Yergens 6

Works Cited

Alexander, Darsie. “Reluctant Witness: Photography and the Documentation of 1960‟s and

1970‟s Art.” Work Ethic. Ed. Helen Anne Molesworth. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania

State University Press, 2003. 53-66.

Fabozzi, Paul, ed. Artists, Critics, Context: Readings in and Around American Art Since 1945.

Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2002.

Kaprow, Allan. “Happenings in the New York Scene.” Artists, Critics, Context: Readings in and

Around American Art Since 1945. Ed. Paul Fabozzi. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice

Hall, 2002. 60-68.

Kaprow, Allan and Robert Smithson. “What is a Museum.” Robert Smithson, The Collected

Writings. Ed. Robert Smithson and Jack D. Flam. Berkeley: University of California

Press, 1996. 43-51.

Kirby, Michael. “Introduction.” Happenings and Other Acts. Ed. Mariellen R. Sandford. London:

Routeledge, 1995.

Meyer-Hermann, Eva. “Museum as Mediation.” Allen Kaprow: Art as Life. Ed. Eva Meyer-

Hermann, Andrew Perchuk and Stephanie Rosenthal. Los Angeles: Getty Research

Institute, 2008. 72-89.

Philips, Glenn. “Time Pieces.” Allen Kaprow: Art as Life. Ed. Eva Meyer-Hermann, Andrew

Perchuk and Stephanie Rosenthal. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2008.
 Yergens 7

Reynolds, Ann. Robert Smithson: Learning from New Jersey and Elsewhere. Cambridge: MIT

Press, 2004.

Rose, Barbara, ed. Pollock Painting. New York: Agrinde Publications Ltd., 1978.

Shapiro, Gary. Earthwards: Robert Smithson and Art after Babel. Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1995.

Smithson, Robert. “Cultural Confinement.” Artists, Critics, Context: Readings in and Around

American Art Since 1945. Ed. Paul Fabozzi. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall,

2002. 247-249.