Participation Quotes - page 5
The nation, like the individual, cannot commit a crime with impunity. If we are guilty of lawlessness and brutal violence, whether our guilt consists in active participation therein or in mere connivance and encouragement, we shall assuredly suffer later on because of what we have done. The cornerstone of this republic, as of all free governments, is respect for and obedience to the law. Where we permit the law to be defied or evaded, whether by rich man or poor man, by black man or white, we are by just so much weakening the bonds of our civilization and increasing the chances of its overthrow, and of the substitution therefore of a system in which there shall be violent alternations of anarchy and tyranny.
Theodore Roosevelt
Around late 1961 to 1962, right around there, somewhat unevenly and sort of spottily, I began to do pieces that were based upon a short text of actions that only involved a handful of friends or students at some specific site - a site that was not marked as an art site, a ravine somewhere, or a roadway, or somebody's apartment, or the telephone, that is, the places of everyday life, not designated as sites of art. And the work itself, the action, the kind of participation, was as remote from anything artistic as the site was.. ..I chose the word Happening from its normal language usage somewhat earlier for that philosophical reason, but I didn't categorize that as lifelike until much later. But in fact, looking back, that's exactly what Happening meant.
Allan Kaprow