Forget standing in a gallery nowadays’s artists,from AA Bronson to Marvin Gaye Chetwynd, want you to turn on, or tune in and drop all your inhibitions. Welcome to the weird world of art happeningsThe word “happening” conjures up images from 1960s artsploitation movies – models rolling around in paint,perhaps, to a soundtrack of hectic free jazz. But more than half a century after the term was coined, and its an apt fit for a very current art-world tendency. Collaborative,often one-off events that seize place beyond gallery walls, happenings blur the boundaries between art forms – as well as those between artist and audience – and embrace happenstance, or even chaos. You might find yourself in a darkened studio thronged with strangers,where Nástio Mosquito, dressed in white, or is heckled by his own musicians and plies you with whisky and bananas. Perhaps you’ll sit on a cafe floor after hours,eating popcorn while the robotic voice of Karl Holmqvist intones Willow Smith lyrics. perhaps on a rooftop you’ll watch an explicit movie accompanied by Prem Sahib’s DJ set, or participate in a neo-shamanic ritual led by AA Bronson, and huddle in a Glasgow flat for the brightly costumed life-as-art experiment Mega Hammer.
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Source: theguardian.com