Anti-Happening

- Drawing & Print (Drawing & Print)

11,4 x 16,2 cm

Julius Koller

location: Pieštany, Slovenská Republika
year born: 1939
gender: male
nationality: Slovakian

Anti-Happening refers to Koller’s 1965 manifesto, ‘Anti-Happening (System of Subjective Objectivity)’. In opposition to the notion of a ‘happening’ as a way of actualising group identity, in his manifesto, Koller stated that his concept of the ‘anti-happening’ aimed at a ‘cultural reshaping of the subject, at awareness, at the surroundings and the real world’ [i] . Unlike happenings, these actions do not involve the staging of psychologically expressive performances. As the art historian Piotr Petrowski has noted, it is part of ‘an attitude that aims to erase the boundaries between different art tendencies (art and anti-art, modernist and neo-avant-garde painting), between different forms of neo-avant-garde practice (performance, conceptual art, Fluxus) and, above all, between art and life’ [ii] . [i] Kathrin Rhomberg and Roman Ondák (eds.), Julius Koller: Univerzálne Futurologické Operácie , Cologne 2003. p.126. [ii] Piotr Piotrowski, In the Shadow of Yalta: Art and the Avant-Garde in Eastern Europe, 1945–1989 , London 2009.


In its stringency, obsession and peculiarity, the oeuvre of Julius Koller is one of the most idiosyncratic and consistent in European art since the 1960s. Yet Koller is not only a seminal figure in the history of the neo- and post-avant-garde; his work has long been a critical inspiration for artists and intellectuals. In the most recent past, Koller’s concepts of the Anti-Happening, the Anti-Picture, the Universal-cultural Futurological Operation (U.F.O.), his actions, objects, texts and the enormous referential archive he built up, have attracted growing interest on the part of a broader art public. From around 1960, in response to the modernist mainstream in Slovak art, Julius Koller began to develop his aesthetic position of the “antihappening.” His strategy consists in using real objects and everyday life as the predefined program for an aesthetic operation: from 1965, in texts rubberstamped on paper that refer to the context of the “anti-happening,” and then in 1967/1968 in pictures for which Koller used white latex paint instead of oils and which saw the first appearance of the question mark—the symbol of Koller’s brands of naming, or “making known,” that was later to undergo many mutations in various media and states of aggregation. The “invitation cards for an idea”—as Koller called the text works relating to the “anti-happenings”—and the palimpsests and serial arrangements of the “anti-pictures” set themselves apart from the academicism of Modernism in more than just formal terms. Koller foregoes every form of technical mastery. The “anti-pictures” are amateurish in style, ensuring that they fulfill their task, defined by Koller as “engaging rather than arranging.” Julius Koller was born in 1939 in Piestany, Slovakia. He died in 2007 in Bratislava.


Colors:



Related works featuring themes of: » Performance Art, » Slovakian  
» see more

Slowed-down Journey
© » KADIST

Roman Ondak

2003

As the caption purposely admits, these drawings were made by friends of Ondák’s at home in Slovakia asked to interpret places he has journeyed to...

The Stray Man
© » KADIST

Roman Ondak

2006

“A man wanders near the windows of a gallery, situated adjacent to the street...

The Pixelated Revolution
© » KADIST

Rabih Mroué

2012

The Pixelated Revolution is a lecture-performance by artist Rabih Mroué about the use of mobile phones during the Syrian revolution...

Memory Mistake of the Eldridge Cleaver Pants
© » KADIST

Paul McCarthy

2008

Memory Mistake of the Eldridge Cleaver Pants was created for the show Paul McCarthy’s Low Life Slow Life Part 1 , held at California College of the Arts’s Wattis Institute in 2008 and curated by McCarthy himself...

Other related works, blended automatically  
» see more

Slowed-down Journey
© » KADIST

Roman Ondak

2003

As the caption purposely admits, these drawings were made by friends of Ondák’s at home in Slovakia asked to interpret places he has journeyed to...

The Stray Man
© » KADIST

Roman Ondak

2006

“A man wanders near the windows of a gallery, situated adjacent to the street...

Untitled
© » KADIST

Trisha Donnelly

2007

Untitled is a black-and-white photograph of a wave just before it breaks as seen from the distance of an overlook...

Related works sharing similar palette  
» see more

Amazing Winners of the 2023 Drone Photo Awards Give a Fresh Perspective on the World
© » MODERN MET PHOTOGRAPHY

Amazing Winners of the 2023 Drone Photo Awards Home / Photography / Photo Contest Amazing Winners of the 2023 Drone Photo Awards Give a Fresh Perspective on the World By Jessica Stewart on January 30, 2024 “Sunken church tower” by Paweł Jagiełło...

How do Wussies Network? by Jonathan Orozco - Omaha
© » WHITEHOT

How do Wussies Network? advertise donate post your art opening recent articles cities contact about article index podcast main February 2024 "The Best Art In The World" "The Best Art In The World" February 2024 How do Wussies Network? Ian Lewandowski, Natalia in Cowboy Hat, Indy Pride, Military Park, Indianapolis 2023, 2023, photography...

Screening : Bertrand Dezoteux — Projection de Harmonie
© » SLASH PARIS

Bertrand Dezoteux — Projection de Harmonie — L’ahah Griset — Screening — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Bertrand Dezoteux — Projection de Harmonie — L’ahah Griset — Screening — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Previous Next Bertrand Dezoteux — Projection de Harmonie Screening Drawing, film Upcoming Bertrand Dezoteux, Harmonie (épisode 1), 2018 Film d’animation Courtesy Galerie Anne Barrault, Paris Bertrand Dezoteux Projection de Harmonie In 4 days: Friday, February 16, 2024 at 7 PM Bertrand Dezoteux Projection de film : “Harmonie” Le 16.02.24 à 19h L’ahah #Griset 4 cité Griset, 75011 Paris Projection du film de Bertrand Dezoteux, Harmonie, suivie d’un échange avec Bernard Gaube modéré par Camille Debrabant, commissaire de l’exposition « Hunimalité »...

The Figurative Paintings of Vivian Greven
© » HIGH FRUCTOSE

Vivian Greven's oil and acrylic paintings, bridging Greco-Roman art and a contemporary sense of depth and space, are studies of intimacy...

Other works by: » Julius Koller  
» see more

Monologika - Yoyo 1.,2. (U.F.O.)
© » KADIST

Julius Koller

1982

The photograph Monologic – Yo-Yo 1, 2 (U...

Demonstrative Cultural Situation 1,2 (U.F.O.)
© » KADIST

Julius Koller

1989

Wordplay was a central focus of Koller’s work, in particular the acronym U...

UFO-Expedition (U.F.O.)
© » KADIST

Julius Koller

1982

Wordplay was a central focus of Koller’s work, in particular the acronym U...

AUTOTROFIA
© » KADIST

Anton Vidokle

2020

Shot in Oliveto Lucano, a village in the south of Italy, AUTOTROFIA (meaning self-eating) by artist Anton Vidokle is a cinéma vérité style film that slides fictive characters into real situations, and vice-versa, to draw a prolonged meditation on the cycle of life, seasonal renewal, and ecological awareness...

The Making of Monster
© » KADIST

Douglas Gordon

1996

In Monster (1996-97), the artist’s face becomes grotesque through the application of strips of transparent adhesive tape, typical of Gordon’s performance-based films that often depict his own body in action...

XXX…I had arranged to meet some friends at 7:40pm
© » KADIST

Jiri Kovanda

1977

All Kovanda’s artistic practice poses the question of visibility...

XXX…I walk along carefully, very carefully, as if I were on ice that might crack at any moment.
© » KADIST

Jiri Kovanda

Kovanda’s ‘discreet’ actions (leaving a discussion in a rush, bumping into passers-by in the street, making a pile of rubbish and scattering it, looking at the sun until tears come…) are always documented according to the same format: a piece of A4 paper, a concise typewritten text, and sometimes a photograph taken by someone else...

Related works found in the same semantic group  
» see more

Rediscovering Hisae Imai’s Otherworldly Vision
© » APERTURE

Once a darling of Tokyo’s avant-garde and fashion scenes in the 1960s, Imai took an unexpected turn after a tragic accident....

Arseniy Zhilyaev's Avant-Garde Museology
© » KADIST

5pm For its first launch in the US, former KADIST AIR Arseniy Zhilyaev , introduces his recent book Avant-Garde Museology , published by e-flux with support from KADIST...

Clowns, Japes, Jokes and other Funny Business from Canyon Cinema
© » KADIST

Avant-garde film is too often dismissed as humorless & boring...

Arseniy Zhilyaev
© » KADIST

Arseniy Zhilyaev (born in 1984) is an artist, writer and political activist who lives and works in Moscow...