Apr. 29, 1962 - The “In” people of New York are discovering a new, far-out entertainment called a “Happening.” Greenwich Village basements, West Side lofts, and East Side art studios supply the space for what leaders of this movement call a new art form. The 30 or 40 persons who make reservations for a Happening may see a beautiful girl dumped into a bathtub filled with water, three persons eating pink food and talking in three languages, or two people dressed in brown wrapping paper wrestling. Claes Oldenburg (pictured), an artist who presents Happenings in his East Side studio on weekends, described them as “a combination of expressionistic theatre and kinetic sculpture.” The Happenings are gaining such status that they are presented in museums. Mr. Oldenburg just returned from Dallas, where avant-garde Texans viewed two Happenings at the Museum for Contemporary Arts.
