- published: 29 Apr 2016
- views: 5
A happening is a performance, event or situation meant to be considered art, usually as performance art. Happenings take place anywhere, and are often multi-disciplinary, with a nonlinear narrative and the active participation of the audience. Key elements of happenings are planned, but artists sometimes retain room for improvisation. This new media art aspect to happenings eliminates the boundary between the artwork and its viewer. Henceforth, the interactions between the audience and the artwork makes the audience, in a sense, part of the art.
In the later sixties, perhaps due to the depiction in films of hippie culture, the term was used much less specifically to mean any gathering of interest, from a pool hall meetup or a jamming of a few young people to a beer blast or fancy formal party.
Allan Kaprow first coined the term "happening" in the spring of 1957 at an art picnic at George Segal's farm to describe the art pieces that were going on[citation needed]. The first appearance in print was in Kaprow's famous "Legacy of Jackson Pollock" essay that was published in 1958 but primarily written in 1956. "Happening" also appeared in print in one issue of the Rutgers University undergraduate literary magazine, Anthologist. The form was imitated and the term was adopted by artists across the U.S., Germany, and Japan. Jack Kerouac referred to Kaprow as "The Happenings man", and an ad showing a woman floating in outer space declared, "I dreamt I was in a happening in my Maidenform brassiere".
In this vast and troubled world
We sometimes loose our way
But I am never lost
I feel this way because
Dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit
Dit-dit, rhythm
Dit-dit, rhythm
Dit-dit, rhythm
Dit-dit, rhythm
I got rhythm
I got music
I got my girl
Who could ask for anything more
I got good times
No more bad times
I got my girl
Who could ask for anything more
Old man trouble (old man trouble)
I don't mind him (I don't mind him)
You won't find him
'Round my door
I got starlight (I got starlight)
I got sweet dreams (I got sweet dreams)
I got my girl
Who could ask for
Who could ask for more
[Instrumental Interlude]
Dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit
Dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit-dit
Old man trouble (old man trouble)
I don't mind him (I don't mind him)
You won't find him
You'll never gonna find 'round my door
I got rhythm (hey, I got rhythm)
I got music (hey, I got music)
I got my girl
Who could ask for anything more
In this vast and troubled world
Dit-dit, rhythm
Dit-dit, rhythm
Dit-dit, rhythm
Dit-dit, rhythm
I got rhythm
I got rhythm