Alison Knowles

For the British rower, seeAlison Knowles (rower).

Alison Knowles
Knowles, c. 2002-5
Born	1933 (age 90–91) New York
Nationality	American
Known for	Performance art,Printmaking
Movement	Fluxus

Alison Knowles(born 1933) is an American visual artist known for her installations, performances, soundworks, and publications. Knowles was a founding member of theFluxusmovement, an international network of artists who aspired to merge different artistic media and disciplines. Criteria that have come to distinguish her work as an artist are the arena ofperformance,theindeterminacyof her event scores resulting in the deauthorization of the work, and the element of tactile participation. She graduated fromPratt Institutein New York with an honors degree in fine art. In May 2015, she was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by Pratt.

In the 1960s, she was an active participant in New York City's downtown art scene, collaborating with influential artists such asJohn CageandMarcel Duchamp.During this time she began producing event scores, or performances that rework the everyday into art. Knowles's inclusion of visual, aural, and tactile elements sets her art apart from the work of other Fluxus artists.

From July 20, 2022 to February 12, 2023, Knowles was the subject ofby Alison Knowles: A Retrospective (1960–2022)at the University of California,Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

Alison Knowles (right) performing one of her pieces on stage with her daughterHannah Higginsat the Fluxus Semicentenary in San Francisco, CA in September, 2011

Early work

Transferring fromMiddlebury Collegein Vermont, Knowles graduated from thePratt Institutein 1956. Since her father was a professor at Pratt, she was able to enroll in the school at no cost. During night classes, Knowles studied painting with abstract expressionistAdolph Gottlieb.She admiredHelen Frankenthalerand had acquaintance with the work ofJackson Pollock.Franz Klinealso taught some of the painting courses. During the day, Knowles studied graphic design and commercial layout. A class taught by painterRichard Lindnerproved very influential for Knowles. “What I learned there was that I am an artist. What I should have learned there is that I am not a painter,” said Knowles in a 2006 interview.

In addition to her father, Knowles notesJohn Cageas another one of her mentors. She knew of Cage through one of his courses taught at theNew School for Social Researchin 1958. Many of the Fluxus leaders, such asDick Higgins,George Brecht,Al HansenandAllan Kaprow,took the historic class.Knowles's focus in painting diminished after her show at the Nonegon Gallery in New York, in which she destroyed all of her works in a bonfire behind her brother's house.This act of destruction led directly to her association with other types of work and eventually with Fluxus. On the first Fluxus tour in 1962, Knowles began to write event scores, which would quickly become a major aspect of the movement.

After participating in the initial Fluxus Festivals in Europe from 1962 to 1963, Knowles returned to the United States and began making objects, some as Fluxus multiples commissioned byGeorge Maciunas,the leader of the movement. Knowles's object-based pieces focus on the audience's tactile and audible interaction with the artwork. While her counterparts targeted the conventions of music, Knowles focused on poetry and the significance of spoken word. During the 1960s, she began to incorporate beans in her art, a common motif in her work. The bean was a unique object to use at a time when other Fluxus artists employed street detritus,readymades,and assemblage objects.

Book objects

With the invitation ofMaciunas,Knowles produced one of her earliest book objects, theBean Rolls(1963). Unlike a traditional bound volume, the pages of this work are tiny paper scrolls, which the reader may select and view in any order. On each scroll, Knowles printed found texts collected from songs, recipes, stories, science, cartoons, and advertisements. The tin also contains dried beans, which create a rattling sound as the container is handled. In the 1960s, Knowles expanded on this performative aspect ofBean Rollsby staging readings with multiple participants.

In 1967, Knowles createdThe House of Dust,perhaps the most widely known example of computer-generateddigital poetry,in collaboration with composerJames Tenney.The poem began as a set of four lists written by Knowles. Selecting a phrase from each list would describe a house made of a certain material, in a particular location, illuminated by a light source, and sheltering various inhabitants.She gave the lists to Tenney, who generated the printed poetry using theFORTRANprogramming language on an early IBM computer. The poem was included in the exhibitionCybernetic Serendipity.The output yielded a permutation sequenced by chance. From roughly 10,000 possible stanzas, Knowles selected one quatrain— “a house of dust / on open ground / lit by natural light / inhabited by friends and enemies” —as the basis for an interactive sculpture on theCalifornia Institute of the Artscampus in the early 1970s.

Knowles expanded the scale of her book projects withThe Big Book(1967), a walk-in construction composed of eight moveable “pages,” each four feet wide by eight feet tall, anchored to a metal spine. Each page featured an access point leading to the next, forming different spaces and ways the reader could approach the book. The composition weighed about a ton, and contained a gallery, library, grass tunnel, and window. It was built using found materials such as a toilet, stove, and telephone from her apartment and studio, and could be packaged and shipped in two crates. The book traveled to cities in Canada, Europe, and the United States, gradually disintegrating into its individual components by the time it reached its final destination in San Diego, California.The Big Bookinspired her other large-scale installations,The Book of BeanandThe Boat Book.In addition to exploring the sculptural potential of a book, Knowles has also produced and written several books of experimental text and poetry.

The Boat Bookpremiered at Art Basel in Miami in January 2014. Knowles said, "The grass tunnel will be replaced by a hoop structure between two pages covered with blue silk like the ocean." The "book sculpture," as she refers to it, also contains a porthole, fishing nets and a fishing pole, an anchor, and other accoutrements of water travel.

Event scores

Event scores are performances invented byGeorge Brecht,who was influenced by Cage's class in experimental composition. Many Fluxus works feature this minimalistic performance piece, which is often composed of simple instruction.As Knowles puts it, an event score is “a one or two line recipe for action.” Knowles'sThe Identical Lunch(1969) is one of her more well-known scores based on her habit of eating the same food, at the same time each day: “a tuna fish sandwich on wheat toast, with lettuce and butter, no mayo and a cup of soup or a glass of buttermilk.” The score supposedly began afterPhilip Corner,her friend and fellow Fluxus member, commented on her daily lunch routine at Riss Dinner in Chelsea, New York. Knowles decided to invite people to join her for lunch and to document all the nuances and repetitions. Repeating the gesture made the meal a self-conscious reflection on an everyday activity.“It was about having an excuse to get to talk to people, to notice everything that happened, to pay attention,” said Knowles during her recent rendition of the event score at theMuseum of Modern Art.

The aspect of touch is a distinct element that sets Knowles apart from many other Fluxus artists. One of her most notable event scores,Make a Salad,was originally performed in 1962 at theInstitute of Contemporary Artsin London. In this score, Knowles prepares a massive salad by chopping the vegetables to the beat of live music, mi xing the ingredients by tossing it in the air, then serving the salad to the audience. Make a Salad has been performed at numerous venues around the world, including theTate Modern,theHigh Line,theWalker Art Center,and most recently atArt Basel2016.

Shoes of Your Choicealso debuted at the same time asMake a Saladat the ICA. ForShoes of Your Choice,Knowles asks the participants to simply describe the shoes they are wearing. In 2011, Knowles performedShoes of Your Choiceand other works for PresidentBarack Obamaand First LadyMichelle Obamain "A Celebration of American Poetry at the White House" alongsideBilly Collins,the hip-hop actor and poetCommon,Elizabeth Alexander,Rita DoveandKenneth Goldsmith.

Soundworks

Knowles has been active in sound since the late 1960s. In 1969, Knowles designed and co-edited John Cage'sNotations,a book of music manuscripts published by theSomething Else Press.HerBean Garden,first presented at theAnnual Avant Garde Festival of New York,consists of a large amplified platform covered with beans. Most recently reconstructed for theAlison Knowlesexhibition at theCarnegie Museum of Art,theBean Gardeninvites visitors to walk through the platform, allowing the sounds of the beans to resonate with each step.Knowles has also created a series of sounded objects, including the bean turner (a handcrafted flax paper pouch filled with beans), wrist rubbers (flax paper “gloves” embedded with beans), and a bamboo and flax accordion.Knowles's interest in the sounds produced by beans was explored in a series of four radio programs hosted by the German stationWestdeutscher Rundfunk,whose director was a friend and supporter of John Cage. In 1982, Knowles was awarded the prestigious Karl Sczuka Award for best radio work from WDR for her event score,Bean Sequences.

Prints

Although she changed direction as her interest in performance developed, Knowles began producing silkscreen paintings shown at theJudson Galleryin the early 1960s. From 1963 until the mid-1970s, print functioned as an expression of her other process-based concerns. In 1963, she collaborated with Cage studentsRobert WattsandGeorge Brechtin theScissors Brothers Warehouseshow, commonly referred to asBLINKfor the bold word that appears in the center. This eighteen-inch square print consisted of three images chosen at random, one selected by each artist. The image appeared on everything from canvases to bathing suits and hairbrushes, and were all sold at flea markets. Knowles produced theIdentical Lunchgraphic series, which showcases her friends and Fluxus colleagues consumingThe Identical Lunch,during the early 1970s.

In the late 1960s, Knowles worked closely withMarcel Duchampto recreate his first optical piece, theCoeurs Volants.The original was made in 1936 for theCahiers d'Art,a French artistic and literary journal. Initially, Knowles wanted the rights to reproduce the image for the cover of aSomething Else Presspublication (featuring Emmett Williams'sconcrete poemSweethearts).However, upon meeting in person, it was decided that she would create a new silkscreen of the work. Knowles visited the apartment of Marcel and Teeny Duchamp to choose color samples for the reprint. After a miscommunication, Duchamp jokingly signed one of the swatches in pencil, arguably creating his lastreadymade.

Awards

Knowles has been acknowledged for her profound contributions to contemporary art in the forms of aGuggenheim Fellowship(1967),National Endowment for the ArtsGrants (1981 and 1985), a collaborativeNew York State Council on the ArtsGrant (1989), adocumentaProfessorship at the Kunstakademie Kassel, Germany (1998), theCollege Art AssociationLifetime Achievement Award (2003), and Anonymous was a Woman Grant (2003). In 2015 Knowles was selected by the art historianClaire Bishopto receive aFrancis J. GreenburgerAward, which go to under-recognized artists every two years.

Personal life

Knowles was married toDick Higgins,a leading Fluxist who coined the term "intermedia".She has twin daughters, Jessica andHannah Higgins.Jessica is a New York-based intermedia artist closely associated with seminal curatorLance Fung,late Fluxus gallerist Emily Harvey, and the International Artists' Museum'sConstruction in Process.Hannah is a writer, art historian, and professor at theUniversity of Illinois at Chicago.Both daughters performed and collaborated in original Fluxus-related events as youths. Knowles often does performance pieces with members of her family, includingLoose Pages,Shoes Of Your Choice,andBeans All Day.

Knowles lives and works from her loft in New York City's Soho district, where she was a resident beginning in the 1950s.

External links

• Archivio Conz
• Alison Knowles
• List of Event Scores
• Alison Knowles at CMOA
• Celebrating the Playful and Ephemeral Art of Alison Knowles
• Her Ordinary Materials: Fluxus Artist Alison Knowles on Her Carnegie Museum Show
• CMOA Exhibit Explores Long Career of Alison Knowles
• Alison Knowles at James Fuentes
• Frijoles Canyon