Childsplay: The Art of Allan Kaprow

Allan Kaprow has been described as an avant-garde revolutionary, a radical sociologist, a Zen(ish) monk, a progressive educator, and an anti-art theorist. But, above all, as this book reminds us, he has been an influential artist. Known for his "Happenings," Kaprow created vanguard performances in the early 1960s in which he collaged various art forms (painting, music, dance), disguised as ordinary things (newspaper, noise, body movement), into quasi-theatrical events. In the decades since, his works have remained open to the changing character of contemporary experience, always seeking the thresholds at which art and life converge. Because this art places such emphasis on direct experience, some people today think Kaprow's works were primarily transitory and immaterial. Childsplay corrects that misconception by providing a vivid description of Kaprow's Happenings and other art activities, clarifying their materiality, duration, and setting, as well as the ways in which people participated in them. Jeff Kelley brings the artist, his era, and his work to life by showing that Kaprow's artworks were physically present, socially engaged, and intellectually resonant in the moment of their enactment.

Table of Contents:
Foreword: Allan at Work--David Antin Acknowledgments Introduction 1. John Dewey and the Ranch 2. A Prelude 3. Eighteen Happenings in Six Parts 4. Happenings in the New York Scene 5. Hoopla 6. On the Road 7. Passing Through 8. The Education of the Un-Artist, I 9. The Education of the Un-Artist, II 10. The Education of the Un-Artist, III 11. Zen 12. Storytelling 13. Rehearsals Notes List of Illustrations Index

About the Author :
Jeff Kelley is a critic and educator living in Oakland, California, and editor of Allan Kaprow's Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life (California, 1993, 2003). David Antin is an internationally recognized poet and performance artist, an art and literary critic, and Professor Emeritus in the Visual Arts Department of the University of California, San Diego.

Review :
"Childsplay is an extraordinary book. Jeff Kelley not only narrates the history of Allan Kaprow's art but also tells the story of art in the last half of the twentieth century from an entirely fresh point of view. He makes sense of performance history in the context of developments in the more traditional art media in a way that I find consistently illuminating." - Henry Sayre, author of The Object of Performance"