Ice Happening

Ice delivered in plastic buckets, Tupperware, ice trays, milk

containers, and plastic bags

1970

by Los Altos High School Art Students

A happening, using ice as the primary medium, was created for the specific purpose of watching it melt away. The students and I advertised in the media (radio, TV, newspapers), and silk-screened posters calling for “water to be frozen in any kind of container” (plastic buckets, Tupperware, ice trays, milk containers, and plastic bags were suggested), to be delivered to the school site. At 8:00 a.m. on the day of the happening, members of the community, parents, teachers, and students, brought approximately tons of ice to the school. As we constructed a frozen architecture we talked about the “ephemerality” of life and its relationship to the materiality of art.

Watermelon Sculpture

40 watermelons, carving knives, and white paper

1972

by Los Altos High School Art Students

Watermelon Sculpture was organized and performed on a warm day, in the afternoon, by a group of art students at the High School who were exploring and experimenting with the ways in which preparing and eating of food and making and enjoying art correspond with each other as forms of bodily and cultural sustenance. The large-scale preparation and eating that took place suggested the making and enjoyment of art as a banquet.

Drill Team

2" x 4" x 8' lengths of Douglas Fir lumber,

work uniforms, and hand drills

1973

by Los Altos High School Art Students

Drill Team was performed as a “walking float” to critique homecoming parades while suggesting alternative meanings of this American tradition. In the punning spirit of Bruce Nauman’s 1967 Drill Team, we dressed in work uniforms, marched in cadence two miles from the school, down main street, and back again as 16 art students carried eight 2" x 4" x 8' wooden boards while 16 others “drilled” into them with hand drills. Our coincidental placement in the parade accentuated our pun—our performance was radically juxtaposed behind the Homecoming Queen and King candidates riding in six new shiny Porsche sports cars.

Bruce Nauman’s 1967 Drill Team

Breaking Bread

12 loaves of French bread, sledgehammers, bucket, towel, water,

paper, and wooden stretchers

1973

by Los Altos High School Art Students

Breaking Bread took place unannounced on the day before Thanksgiving as a ceremonial tribute to the American holiday. The performance began promptly at 7:30 a.m. in the front courtyard of the High School for arriving students to view and participate in before morning classes began. My art students pounded 5 lb. sledgehammers, heavy “utensils,” until all the loaves of bread were broken. Then all of the sledgehammers were laid down, and the broken bread was carried off on stretchers and eaten by all the participants, including the viewers.

An Evening of Live Performances

SFMOMA 1974

Charles Garoian and Students

Soon after the 1974 SECA Awards Exhibition opened at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, my students and I were invited to present an evening of live performances in the Rotunda Room, which was a large circular space in the middle of the Museum that was used for public events. I, in turn, invited students from my art classes to participate who had previously explored, experimented, and improvised solo performances as well as participated in the larger-scale group performances at the High School. The several performances that we presented at SFMOMA on that evening included the following:

Duration of wrapping to water reflection

Black gauze, black paint, white bed sheet,

b/w video of water reflections, and the body

(1974)

by Steve and K.C.

Pyramids and the body

¼ ton sand, plywood pyramid molds, the body

(1974)

by Brian

Bodies in motion Improvisational dance

(1974)

by Wendy, Tracy and friends

Boycott/conceptual art

Corner of Van Ness and McAllister

(1974)

by Donna and Alan

Clouds A narrative reading + slide

projections

(1974)

by Mark

Refreshment booth

Wood, uniform, and refreshments

(1974)

by Dan

Crying + Laughing Piece

25 lbs onions, knives, tape recorder

(1974)

by Charles Garoian and students