Abstract
This chapter investigates spatial liminality in Manhattan in the early 1960s and the transitional character of projects that stand in between institutional spaces and the urban site, embracing ever more unmoored types of artistic mobility. I examine both artistic projects and artist writings, and I emphasize the role played by the “everyday literature” of the American city (traffic sounds, graffiti, conversations in public places). Claes Oldenburg ’s The Street (1960) and The Store (1964), which recreated urban environments within the gallery, and Allan Kaprow’s Words (1962), which rendered the verbal environment of the city in the gallery, are central in the transition towards the street. Later the Happenings moved into urban space, like Calling (1965), divided between New York and New Jersey. The last part of the chapter is devoted to Fluxus and conceptual walking projects: A Very Lawful Dance—For Ennis (1962), performed by Dick Higgins and Benjamin Patterson in Times Square, and Yoko Ono ’s Map Pieces (1964).
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Manolescu, M. (2018). Transitions: Happenings and Beyond. In: Cartographies of New York and Other Postwar American Cities. Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98663-0_3
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