Push & Pull @ Allan Kaprow. 1963 (happening)
Push & Pull (for Hans Hofman) is a participatory installation in which visitors arrange and re-arrange domestic objects and junk. The work was originally conceived as a parody of Allan Kaprow’s painting teacher, Hans Hofmann, who often used the phrase « push and pull » to describe the dynamics involved in two dimensional composition. Kaprow expanded Hofman’s concept of compositional strategy, moving it beyond the canvas and into social space. Participants in Push & Pull plan and implement alterations to gallery space, co-operating or competing with each other in an ever-evolving furniture dance. Push and Pull is a microcosm of the tensions involved in all spatial negotiations in urban environments.
