biografia di Al HANSEN (1927-1995)

Birth place: Queens, NY

Death place: Cologne, Germany

Profession: "Happening" artist

Studied: Tulane Univ., 1949; then peripatetically attended Brooklyn College, ASL, PI School Art, & Hans Hoffman Sch. Art; New Sch. Social Research with John Cage, 1958

Exhibited: Third Rail Gal., NYC (founder, 1962); Gracie Mansion Gal., 1989 (last NYC solo); Poszti-Bott Gal., Cologne, 1995

Comments: One of the founders of "Fluxus," he saw art-making as an event, or "Happening." In the late 1940s, he executed what may have been the first "Happening" when he dropped a piano off a four-story building in Frankfurt. During the early 1960s, he was part of the Greenwich Village art scene with friends Dine, Oldenburg, and Rauschenberg. His collages were often made of found wrappers and other paper trash. Author: A Primer on Happenings and Time-Space Art (1965). Teacher: Rutgers Univ., 1967-74.

Sources: obit., New York Times (June 27, 1995, p.D21)