Happenings: One1962

Early in 1962, Claes Oldenburg offered a remarkable series of ten "Happenings" in a store on East Second Street in New York City. The audiences were kept small to heighten the intimacy of the experience. What is a "Happening"? It would seem impossible to describe afterwards. Yet Raymond Saroff compressed the rich and sprawling imagery of each evening-length work to the essential matter in hand, reassembling a visual realization of what was seemingly consigned to the memories of its audience. All the characterizations, the unprepared transitions, the very personal rhythms with something of Saroff's own: the Happenings' impact on a sensitive eye, its reduction to a single and coherent point of view. – Howard Rose (1962).