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Allan Kaprow (1927–2006) is internationally renowned mainly as an action artist. Not only did he coin the term Happening—he gave distinction to this art form in New York in the late 1950s. Also his environments—huge, changeable installations, made from material such as car tires, drums and ice blocks – are regarded as milestones in recent art history. Allan Kaprow did, however, began his artistic career as a painter, not least in connection with his studies under Hans Hofmann; in addition, he studied art history under Meyer Shapiro and composition with John Cage. He was, therefore, not only open to theory at an early stage, but also to various artistic and interpretative approaches. He always moved between the tension-filled areas of intuition, open form and time reference on the one hand, and the reflexive practice as a theoretician and art historian on the other. The exhibition at Villa Merkel in Esslingen was, for the first time, exclusively dedicated to his early paintings from the time between 1946 and 1957, and reveals the role models the young artist chose to follow and work on, and, in particular, his interest in questions on space as well as his endeavor to somehow contextualize the achievements of Jackson Pollock and John Cage. This extends to the works created during the mid-1950s, which he called »action collages« and in which he gradually incorporated everyday materials and objects. The current book presents a large number of previously unseen paintings by Allan Kaprow.
Exhibition:
Villa Merkel Esslingen, 19/3–28/5/2017
Alan Kaprow (1927–2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a helped to establish the concepts of performance art. He was a pioneer and theorist of Environment and Happening. He called it Activities, so Fluxus, performance art, and installation art were indeed strongly influenced by his work. But his beginnings are wonderful paintings, familiar to European painting of the Modern. His list of exhibitions and Acitivities is extensive: 1953 he started exhibiting his work at Art House Rutgers University Brunswick NY, 1956 Jewish Community Center Highland Park NY, 1959 Hansa Gallery New York, 1967 Pasadena Art Museum, 1976 Kunsthalle Bremen, 1978 Museum of the University of Northern Iowa, 1991 Fonazione Mudima Milan, 1997 Hyde Gallery Grossmont College El Cajon CA, 2005 Hauser & Wirth Zurich, 2006 Haus der Kunst Munich, 2007 Van Abbemuseum Eindhoven, 2008 Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, 2013 CAPC Musée d’art contemporain Bordeaux, 2014 Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 2017 Villa Merkel Esslingen.
Andreas Baur is director of the Städtische Galerie Villa Merkel in Esslingen, edited and wrote critical essays for the monographic catalogs of Darren Almond, Willie Doherty, Hamish Fulton, Alan Kaprow, Manfred Kuttner, Andreas Schulze, Marcus Weber as well as for GOOD SPACE (2017) and Better than de Kooning (2015) among others.
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