The mid-20th-century art movement

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 ...

had a strong association with

Rutgers University Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a Public university, public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's C ...

History

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. ...

and Robert Watts, both key figures in the movement, originally met while they were students at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

; though only together there for one year, soon after they both began teaching at Rutgers. George Brecht was working in

New Brunswick, New Jersey New Brunswick is a city (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Middlesex County, New Jersey, Middlesex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.Robert Watts on display at the university. He was so impressed that he sought him out and they became friends. Claes Oldenburg referred to Allan Kaprow, George Segal, George Brecht, Robert Whitman, Robert Watts, Lucas Samaras, Geoffrey Hendricks and

Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein ( ; October27, 1923September29, 1997) was an American pop artist. He rose to prominence in the 1960s through pieces which were inspired by popular advertising and the comic book style. Much of his work explores the relations ...

as the New Jersey School. George Segal and Allan Kaprow referred to it as the New Brunswick School of Painting. In the late 1950s, George Segal invited Allan Kaprow to go on a mushroom hunt with him 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 ...

. Cage is remembered for his class in experimental composition, but he also taught mushroom identification. A discussion on the use of electronic sound recordings in art pieces led to Cage inviting Kaprow to his class. George Segal, Allan Kaprow, and Robert Watts all attended Cage's class.

The first "happenings"

Segal hosted annual picnics for his New York art friends. It was at one of these that Kaprow first coined the term

Happening A happening is a performance, event, or situation art, usually as performance art. The term was first used by Allan Kaprow in 1959 to describe a range of art-related events. History Origins Allan Kaprow first coined the term "happening" i ...

, for an impromptu artistic event, in the Spring of 1957. 'Happening' first appeared in print in the Winter 1958 issue of the Rutgers undergraduate literary magazine, ''Anthologist''. The form was imitated and the term was adopted by artists across the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

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 ...

, and

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Jack Kerouac Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac (; March 12, 1922 – October 21, 1969), known as Jack Kerouac, was an American novelist and poet who, alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, was a pioneer of the Beat Generation. Of French-Canadian ...

referred to Kaprow as "the Happenings man," and an ad showing a woman floating in outer space declared, "I dreamt I was in a happening in my Maidenform brassiere."

Other events

Yam Festival

George Brecht and Robert Watts would meet for lunch once a week at the

Howard Johnson's Howard Johnson by Wyndham, still commonly referred to as Howard Johnson's, is an American hotel brand with over 200 hotels in 15 countries. It was also formerly a Chain store, restaurant chain, which at one time was the largest in the U.S., wit ...

New Brunswick New Brunswick is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

, they were occasionally joined by Geoffrey Hendricks. It was there that they planned the Yam Festival. While the festival was originally supposed to take place in Princeton at the suggestion of Bob Whitman, it ended up taking place at George Segals farm, on the Rutgers campuses, and in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. It was venue on May, 1963 to actions and Happenings by artists including

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 ...

, Allan Kaprow, La Monte Young and Wolf Vostell who made the Happening ''TV-Burying'' in coproduction with the

Smolin Gallery The Smolin Gallery was an avant-garde art venue and gallery on 57th Street (Manhattan), 57th Street in New York City, at its peak in the 1960s. It was known for its involvement with installation art, performance art and experimental art, and was be ...

. Yam Festival was a year-long festival that took place between 1962 – 1963. Yam is May backwards. Happenings included Yam Lecture, Yam Hat Sale, Water Day, Clock Day, Box Day and Yam Day. The Yam Festival Delivery Event was an early

mail art Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the mail, postal service. It developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence School and ...

piece.

Orgies Mysteries Theater

In 1970, Hermann Nitsch performed his Orgies Mysteries Theater at the round house on College Farm Road on the Cook College campus. A lamb was killed, skinned, disemboweled, and hung on a wall.

Other happenings

In 1968,

shot sheets of orchestral paper with a machine gun to create ''One Thousand Symphonies'', which was later performed by Philip Corner. Geoffrey Hendricks performed ''The Sky is the Limit'' in the Voorhees Chapel in 1969. A 1970 Flux Fest at Douglass featured soccer played on stilts, a javelin event with a balloon replacing the javelin, and table tennis with holes in the center of the paddles or tin cans glued to the paddle.

Today

Watts taught at Rutgers for 31 years. Geoffrey Hendricks retired in 2003, after nearly 50 years at Rutgers. In 1999, Joan Marter published ''Off Limits: Rutgers University and the Avant-Garde, 1957-1963'', which featured an exhibit of the same name at the Newark Museum. It won the International Association of Art Critics award for "Best Exhibition in a Museum Outside New York City." In 2003, the art galleries at

Mason Gross School of the Arts Mason Gross School of the Arts ("Mason Gross" or "MGSA") is the arts conservatory at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Mason Gross offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in art, design, dance, filmmaking, music, and theater. Ma ...

held ''Critical Mass: Happenings, Fluxus, Performance, Intermedia and Rutgers University, 1958-1972'' to coincide with the release of a book by the same name by Geoffrey Hendricks. It featured artifacts from performances by Rutgers-affiliated Fluxus artists. The Flux Mass was re-staged that year on November 1 (in the same chapel as the original Flux Mass) as part of a series of performances to accompany the exhibition. The mass was also re-created at

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...

References

Selected bibliography

* Marter, Joan. ''Off Limits: Rutgers University and the Avant-Garde, 1957-1963''. Newark, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999. * Hendricks, Geoffrey. ed. ''Critical Mass: happenings, Fluxus, performance, intermedia, and Rutgers University, 1958-1972''. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2003. * Hendricks, John. ed. ''Fluxus Codex''. Detroit, Mich. : Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection, 1998. {{Fluxus Fluxus Rutgers University