Notes on Kaprow

In "Education of the Un-Artist" parts one and two, Allan Kaprow, the person who popularized Happenings in the 1950s and early 60s, calls for artists to go much further than then-contemporary (late 60s/early 70s) "anti-art" or "non-art" gestures that we can now read as early forms of postmodernism, site-specificity, and post studio practice. Instead, he advocates for artists to give up thinking about their work in light of that privileged category altogether and to unart themselves. In many ways, his call echoes earlier avant-gardes' calls for bringing the art world down a peg or two and engaging more directly in the world (Futurism, Dada, Constructivism, Situationism, et al), but he goes father by calling for the abolition of art as any kind of definition for the activities that are made by people formerly known as artists. The activities he proposes in art's place he terms "intermedia" (after Dick Higgins), and his definition emphasizes playfulness and enjoyment as a creative, expressive, pedagogical, and political act. Part one closes with a classic, though tongue in cheek, call to arms, "Artists of the world, drop out! You have nothing to lost but your professions" (109), echoing, of course, the traditional call for working-class solidarity.

Kaprow begins this pair of essays by claiming that the world outside of art is not only much more interesting than art but also much better art than art itself. He critiques 60s art trends of 'nonart' and 'anti-art' as colonizing the everyday. He defines nonartists as people "who consistently, or at one time or other, have chosen to operate outside the pale of art establishmes--that is, in their heads or in the daily or natural domain...but sooner or later most of them and their colleagues throughout the world have seen their work absorbed into the cultural institutions against which they initially measured their liberation" (98-99). He defines "anti-artists" as artists, like the Dadaists, who willfully and often violently inserted 'non-art' materials into art contexts in order to question or confront the precepts of art. This practice is now appropriated as well, since "antiart in 1969 is embraced in every case as proart, and therefore, from the standpoint of one of its chief functions, it is nullified" (100). Art is simply whatever the vast machinery of museums, galleries, curators, dealers, critics, buyers, and artists say it is. It becomes "Art art," or a discipline that "maintains for its exclusive use certain sacred settings and formats handed down by this tradition: exhibitions, books, recordings, concerts, arenas, shrines, civic monuments, stages, film screenings, and the "culture" columns of the mass media. These grant accreditation the way universities grant degrees" (101).

This great apparatus of professionalization that absorbs radical art gestures also prevents artists from playing "renegade with the profession of art itself," which Kaprow thinks they most certainly should do (101). The autonomy of the work and world of art is its own greatest enemy because ithas become indifferent to "the ritual escape from Culture" and offers this space of play in only the most cosmetic way (102). In other words, the incursions of art into life make art look a lot less interesting than life.

Therefore, Kaprow calls for artists to remake themselves, first, and fleetingly as nonartists and then, more permanently as unartists who will use humor and play to reinvigorate themselves and society. "When art is only one of several possible functions a situation may have, it loses its priveleged staus and becomes, so to speak, a lowercase attribute...[Intermedia emphasizes] context rather than category. Flow rather than work of art" (105).

Kaprow develops these ideas at greater length in part 2, where he discusses the new role of the unartist as being surprisingly like that of the old-fashioned artist: mimesis. Rather than reproducing the appearance of the world, however, the unartist is called to "imitate life as before. Jump right in. Show others how" (110). The activities of art-trained un-artists "parallels aspects of culture and reality as a whole" (111). Therefore, as desire to engage directly with the culture means to intervene in it, to change it somehow. "The feeling that one is part of the world would be quite an accomplishment in itself, but there's an added payoff: the feedback loop is never exact. As I have said, something new comes out in the process--knowledge, well-being, surprise, or, as in the case of bionics, useful technology" (112). Or, as Kaprow goes on to discuss as length, play.

Play is, for Kaprow, a powerfuly transgressive act, one that cuts against the most sacredly held traditions of Euro-American culture. In this culture, people work at having fun, and games are used as much for prestige and power as for enjoyment. He calls on the unartist "first to learn, then to celebrate, the idea of play--but play as inherently worthwhile, play stripped of game theory, that is, of winners and losers" (121). He sees this as an essential social function, even a pedagogical one far more efficacious than the traditionally difficult to find utility of 'art.' "Only when active artists willingly cease to be artists can they conver their abilities, like dollars into yen, into something the world can spend: play. Play as currency. We can best learn to play by example, and un-artists can provide it. In thir new job as educators, they need simply play as they once did under the banner of art, but among those who do not care about that. Gradually, the pedigree "art" will recede into irrelevance" (125).