By Alison Knowles

About this book

Between 1964-1974, poet, editor and composer Dick Higgins created the Great Bear imprint to publish experimental writing, manifestos and "scenarios" by artists, authors and musicians he knew in connection with the New School in New York City. Housed as svelte (typically 16 pages though occasionally longer), saddle-stitched pamphlets, the Great Bear pamphlets showcased the work of many twentieth century avant-garde luminaries, among them: Nam June Paik, John Giorno, Allan Kaprow, Claes Oldenburg, Luigi Russolo, Al Hansen, Jackson Mac Low, Oyvind Fahlstrom, Robert Filliou, Robert Watts, Emmett Williams, Dieter Roth and John Cage. All pamphlets had been out of print since their original publications in the 1960s until their limited-edition reprinting in 2008. This is a facsimile reprint of the original printing from 1965 by Fluxus artist Alison Knowles and presents a series of Event Scores. As Knowles explains, "Event Scores involve simple actions, ideas, and objects from everyday life recontexualized as performance. Event Scores are texts that can be seen as proposal pieces or instructions for actions. The idea of the score suggests musicality. Like a musical score, Event Scores can be realized by artists other than the original creator and are open to variation and interpretation."