Total Art: Environment – Happening – Performance

Since the 1960s, we have seen, in the North American happenings movement as well as in the provocative European precursors of the Dada movement, Italian futurism, and the actions of the surrealists, a change in direction towards a tradition of performance practice that combines art and practical life.

The seminar focusses, on the one hand, on the aesthetic structures and political and social functions of Total Art in their interdisciplinary juxtaposition and combination of (not only) artistic forms of expression and, on the other hand, on the special attempts of representatives of the Total Art movement to deal with reality. Whether these attempts can provide impulses for artistically oriented teaching and learning today will be discussed towards the end of the seminar.

The seminar will begin with a visit to the Dada exhibition currently being presented at Kunsthalle München (see separate notice).

Basic Reading

BECKER, Jürgen and VOSTELL, Wolf (eds.): Happenings. Reinbek bei Hamburg 1965
HENRI, Adrian: Total Art. Environments, Happenings and Performance. London 1974
JAPPE, Elisabeth: Performance Ritual Prozess. Handbuch der Aktionskunst in Europa. Munich, New York 1993
SCHILLING, Jürgen: Aktionskunst. Lucerne 1978