Allan Kaprow's Comfort Zones
Allan Kaprow was a leader of emerging installation and performance art in America during the late 20th century. Along with contemporaries including Roy Lichtenstein and George Segal, Kaprow was associated with the Fluxus movement comprised of a diverse community of creatives across disciplines spanning writing, design, music, and art. This community greatly valued the artistic process over the finished product and is known for creating new art forms by embracing experimental approaches. Comfort Zones, staged during two days in June of 1975 at Galeria Vandres in Madrid, embodies both the essence of Kaprow’s work as well as its influence.
The Activity involved couples engaging in eight sets of rules and procedures during a time in history when public displays of intimacy were monitored by the country’s authoritarian regime. Comfort Zones explores the notions of “territorial bubbles” and “eye contacts” as defined by the social sciences, which essentially posits that people have invisible bubbles around their bodies limiting their degree of comfort in relation to the proximity of other people. Kaprow anticipated that the bubbles would shift in size and range depending on the social situation and individuals involved, so he sought to engage his participants with each other through behaviors that would elicit imperfect and unconscious non-verbal communications.
Couples were instructed to approach each other from distances that positioned them far from each other or brought them (uncomfortably) close, in either order. They were expected to pronounce the key word “now” in scenarios where either reached the limit of his or her comfort zone. Invisible and extrasensory elements that stem from mutual feelings were responsible for bringing them together or repelling them away. For time spans ranging between a few hours to private/public spaces and sedentary/mobile activities, partners A and B engaged in acts that tested the fluidity and resilience of their territorial bubbles, or the boundaries of their comfort zones as they stood in relation to one another.
Written by Emma Li
19 - 05 - 22