just looked thorugh the wayback machine by coincidence found my notes from this talk -bjørn if you're not sure you have to keep hold it but if you're sure you can let it go
- Alan Kaprow talk Astrup-Fearnley Museum, Sun 17.02.02. A very down-to-earth exposition from "the founder of happening". Just some mental notes: "This is a problem ... why should I come here to talk about art? ... Because he was a friend ... In the beginning my problem was that I liked art things but at the same time couldn't care less ... So I started doing environments and happenings as they came to be known ... It was a difficult time, I lost many artist friends because of it ... Installation and performance is something completely different from environments and happenings - the former two being artist centered and within the usual art context, while the latter two isn't about art at all ... It took me 20-30 years to free myself from art ... If people ask me about art I run away - goodbye, goodbye ... People have these, like, bubbles around them, sometimes they are small, like when there's some intimacy and personal contact between people, and sometimes big, like when aggressive, maybe hostile ... at the workshop the students practiced this approaching each other while keeping eyecontact ... What I tell them is - to be stupid ... In the society we're supposed to be smart ... Stupidity can be nice ... Play around with culture ... Like the rules for handshaking ... I found that the rule was shaking 1.5 times ... Try to pump 3-5 times and you'll see strange things happen ... I've practiced pumping up to 20 times ... Art student worry, I tell him to be stupid ... Can art change society? I quote John Cage: How to improve the world: you will only make things worse ... I'm always asked for comments on art ... I look at the Kiefer paintings in this room and what can I say? I like them ... My relation to fluxus? We were friends, but the fluxus chef George Maciunas and I hated each other so I was not part of it ...
