A blog dedicated to art and design.

Greenberg’s essay argues that there is logic to the development of modernist art and modernist painting. He defines Modernism as “the use of the characteristic methods of a discipline to criticize the discipline itself – not in order to subvert it, but to entrench it more firmly in its area of competence.” He states that modernism criticizes from the inside rather than from the outside, through the procedures themselves of that which is being criticized. The uniqueness of an art form depends on the medium in which it is created. When the unique quality is classified, the modernist role is to purge all elements not essential and specific to the medium. So basically, in Modernism, each art searches for “purity.”

Fluxus works often required the participation of a spectator in order to be completed. It was similar to performance art, but the artist would give a set of rules or directions to follow. Fluxus embraced many of the concepts and practices associated with the post-war avant-garde of Western Europe and North America, including those of Letterism, concrete poetry, concrete and random music, Happenings, and conceptual art. In his essay, Maciunas categorized this diversity under the broad heading of ‘Neo-Dada’ and stressed the interest shared by all the artists in manifesting time and space as concrete phenomena.

Kaprow defines happenings as a type of art that is defined by its manipulation of controlled spaces, such as galleries and warehouses, where the spectator is immersed and involved in a variety of sensory stimulations. These stimulations could be visual, auditory, kinetic, tactile, and sometimes through the sense of smell. Kaprow used these happenings as a way to reject the conventional ways of exhibiting art.