Alfred Earl "Al" Hansen (5 October 1927 – 20 June 1995) was an American artist. He was a member of

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...

, a movement that originated on an artists' collective around George Maciunas. He was the father of Andy Warhol protégé Bibbe Hansen and the grandfather and artistic mentor of rock musician

Beck Beck David Hansen (born Bek David Campbell; July 8, 1970), known mononymously as Beck, is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He rose to fame in the early 1990s with his Experimental music, experimental and Lo-fi mus ...

and artist Channing Hansen. Bibbe and Channing continue his legacy by performing some of his most iconic works.

Biography

Hansen was born in 1927 in New York City, to a family of Norwegian heritage. He was a friend to several notable artists, including

Yoko Ono Yoko Ono (, usually spelled in katakana as ; born February 18, 1933) is a Japanese multimedia artist, singer, songwriter, and peace activist. Her work also encompasses performance art and filmmaking. Ono grew up in Tokyo and moved to New York ...

and

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

. Hansen served in Germany during World War II. During his service, Hansen once pushed a piano off the roof of a five-story building, which became the foundation of one of his most recognized performance pieces, the ''Yoko Ono Piano Drop.'' Many artists have also destroyed or altered pianos including

, Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik and Raphael Montañez Ortiz. Hansen studied with composer

at the now famous 1958 Composition Class at the New School for Social Research in New York City along with fellow students,

Dick Higgins Dick Higgins (15 March 1938 – 25 October 1998) was an American artist, composer, art theorist, poet, publisher, printmaker, and a co-founder of the Fluxus international artistic movement (and community). Inspired by John Cage, Higgins was ...

, George Brecht, and

Allan Kaprow Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American performance artist, installation artist, painter, and assemblagist . He helped to develop the " Environment" and "Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well as their theory. ...

amongst others. Hansen was perhaps best known for his performance pieces, his participation in Happenings, and for his collages in which he often used cigarette butts and candy bar wrappers as the raw materials, among them numerous variations of a sculpture referring to the

Venus of Willendorf The Venus of Willendorf is an Venus figurine estimated to have been made years ago. It was recovered on 7 August 1908 from an archaeological dig conducted by Josef Szombathy, Hugo Obermaier, and Josef Bayer at a Paleolithic site near Willendorf ...

. He wrote an important book about performance art, ''A Primer of Happenings and Time Space Art'' published by Something Else Press in 1965. In 1966 he attended the Destruction in Art Symposium in London organized by Gustav Metzger, where he met and befriended many of the Viennese Action Artists. In October 1966 Otto Muhl organized an event called "Action Concert for Al Hansen" in Vienna. Hansen was a frequent visitor to '' The Factory'', Andy Warhol's studio in New York. In 1969, Hansen founded the underground magazine ''Kiss'', which featured a gossip column by Warhol and contributions by his Factory superstars. He was an art professor at Rutgers College in Newark, New Jersey, into the 1970s. In 1977 Hansen managed Los Angeles punk bands the Controllers and the Screamers in Hollywood. In the 1980s Hansen moved to Cologne, Germany, where he and colleague Lisa Cieslik established an art school, the ''Ultimate Akademie''. Inspired among others by the ''Final Academy'' of Genesis P-Orridge it became a meeting point for local and international performers of the time-based arts. He died in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, in 1995, with a number of friends celebrating a Fluxus funeral according to his plan.

Notable collections

Archivio Conz - Francesco Conz's Collection
*''Yes She He,'' c. 1962, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. *''Coco Was a Poco Loco about Cacao and Men,'' 1968, MoMA, New York, NY *''John Cage Word Opera,'' 1972–1076, Walker Art Center Minneapolis, MN *''Amazone Venus 3/9'' 1994, Kölnisches Stadtmuseum. *''Yayoi Kusama's Yokohama Hammock'' 1963, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien Vienna.mumo
Museum Moderner Kunst"
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References

* René Block, Gabriele Knapstein: 'A long story with many knots. Fluxus in Germany 1962–1994.' (''Eine lange Geschichte mit vielen Knoten. Fluxus in deutschland.'') Institute for foreign relations (''Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen''), Stuttgart, Germany, 1995

External links

Al Hansen websiteMaciunas on Fluxus and Hansen's part therein, George Maciunas's Seattle Interview
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hansen, Al 1927 births 1995 deaths Artists from New York City Fluxus American people of Norwegian descent People associated with The Factory