"24-Hour Kaprow" was envisioned as a performance video where Kaprow’s collected works would be re-presented through a 24 hour long video.
RICHard SMOLinski’s unrealized project, 24-Hour Kaprow
24-Hour Kaprow was envisioned as a performance video where Allan Kaprow’s collected works would be re-presented through a 24 hour long video. The video would include all of Kaprow’s live works, from the early Happenings through the later Activities. The project was appealing on two fronts, first it would underscore Kaprow’s dedication to the ephemeral practice of performance and illustrate how many of his ideas and activities became performance art’s signature gestures. Secondly, the format would point towards Douglas Gordon’s “found” film, 24 Hour Psycho, a work that reconfigured Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller Psycho to a twenty-four hour length. Unlike the glacial pace of Gordon’s film, I imagined that 24-Hour Kaprow would unfurl at a rapid rate like a frenzied high-brow Keystone Kops feature. As Gordon’s film figured largely in Nicolas Bourriaud’s Postproduction, 24-Hour Kaprow might have been a way to covertly critique Bourriaud’s ubiquitous influence in the cultural field. Additionally, the work would seem to fit nicely into the recuperative parody genre evident in works like Baldessari Sings LeWitt or Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley’s notorious Fresh Acconci. For better or worse, I decided that I wanted to offer audiences a more creative form of participation and moved towards participatory performances where I introduce participants to portmanteau word-coinage and collaborative narrative composition.
"24-Hour Kaprow" was envisioned as a performance video where Kaprow’s collected works would be re-presented through a 24 hour long video.
RICHard SMOLinski’s unrealized project, 24-Hour Kaprow
24-Hour Kaprow was envisioned as a performance video where Allan Kaprow’s collected works would be re-presented through a 24 hour long video. The video would include all of Kaprow’s live works, from the early Happenings through the later Activities. The project was appealing on two fronts, first it would underscore Kaprow’s dedication to the ephemeral practice of performance and illustrate how many of his ideas and activities became performance art’s signature gestures. Secondly, the format would point towards Douglas Gordon’s “found” film, 24 Hour Psycho, a work that reconfigured Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller Psycho to a twenty-four hour length. Unlike the glacial pace of Gordon’s film, I imagined that 24-Hour Kaprow would unfurl at a rapid rate like a frenzied high-brow Keystone Kops feature. As Gordon’s film figured largely in Nicolas Bourriaud’s Postproduction, 24-Hour Kaprow might have been a way to covertly critique Bourriaud’s ubiquitous influence in the cultural field. Additionally, the work would seem to fit nicely into the recuperative parody genre evident in works like Baldessari Sings LeWitt or Paul McCarthy and Mike Kelley’s notorious Fresh Acconci. For better or worse, I decided that I wanted to offer audiences a more creative form of participation and moved towards participatory performances where I introduce participants to portmanteau word-coinage and collaborative narrative composition.