Performa 07_the art of space presence and time

PERFORMA07
SECOND BIENNIAL OF NEW VISUAL ART PERFORMANCE IN NEW YORK CITY
OCTOBER 27 THROUGH
NOVEMBER 20, 2007
18 Happenings in 6 Parts (Reenactment)
18 Happenings in 6 Parts was first performed in the Fall of 1959, at the Reuben Gallery in New York City. After a few performances, it was never shown again. Today, it is considered one of the major turning points in the history of performance and visual arts. In 2006, a few weeks before his death, Kaprow authorized a re-doing of the piece based on the dozens of original pages of music and movement scores, notes, drawings, writings, and drafts he had created in the summer and fall of 1959. The re-doing was presented on the occasion of a major exhibition of Kaprow's work at Haus der Künst, Munich, in the Fall of 2006.

While remaining faithful to the power of Kaprow’s notes and scores, this re-doing approaches Kaprow’s seminal work as an always moving, always provisional, and always renewed set of dynamic propositions, allowing us to rethink how the acts scored under a title as powerful as 18 Happenings in 6 Parts produce new possibilities for reconsidering performance’s relationship to its past -- and new possibilities for rediscovering the absolute contemporaneity of Kaprow’s work