Word: kaprow
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...comes as no surprise that Buchloch, co-curator of _Experiments in the Everyday_, is particularly interested in Watts's work. Though Watts never achieved the same kind of notoriety as Kaprow did, the exhibit grants disproportionate weight to his work, leaving the Kaprow offerings spare but satisfying...
...Memorable are two early paintings by Kaprow, both of which reveal his abstract expressionist training: "Hysteria," a visually assaulting assemblage of painted fragments and mirrors, and "Rearrangeable Panels," a series of nine wall-sized panels which have been presented in any number of concatenations. Though each panel is derivative of Robert Rauschenberg in painterly technique and choice of materials (plastic fruits, leaves, mirrors, colored lightbulbs), the piece as a whole reveals an attitude of Dadaist whimsy in the operation of chance, in the perpetual disruption of predetermined order. Also by Kaprow are a series of photographs and instruction sheets from...
...clear tour de force of the exhibit is the surprisingly complete array of work by Watts, including early drawings and paintings, mail-order newsletters and found objects. Just as Kaprow's early paintings revealed abstract expressionist beginnings, so too do Watts's "Blink" and "Monhegan" drawings...
...Pieces such as "Frog Game" and samples from the Yam Festival newsletter, commemorating a year-long arts festival in 1963-4 which began and ended in May (Yam backwards), offer an intriguing glimpse at the earnest wit and interactive character of Watts's aesthetic. The weakest pieces by both Kaprow and Watts are the found objects, such as a stamp machine and a bucket with balls of yarn, which are derivative of Duchamp's ready-mades. They lack the spontaneity and originality of Kaprow's and Watts's more interactive works...
...pushed in tandem towards an innovative dissolution of traditional notions about art and artist. In the words of Watts, "one can imagine an audience where the audience becomes the sole activator and responds to itself." Until then, we can enjoy the elegant, complete, yet unresolved gallery presentation of Kaprow's and Watts's work at the List...