Allan Kaprow

As a cult environment produced by the American artist Allan Kaprow (1927-2006), from the very first time it made its intrusion into the courtyard of the Martha Jackson Gallery, in New York in 1961, it was a success. Visitors moved about as best they could on piles of tires which they re-arranged at will. Art merged with life. Since then, Yard has been re-invented several times a year, indoors and out alike. Nowadays, such a degree of adaptability for a work may seem unbelievable. It is. And the idea is all the more powerful because the impact is a visual one. Re-invented in the pharaonic proportions of the nave, Yard acts in this context as a metaphorical base and foundation of a history, the CAPC’s, and raises the issue of the anti-stage, because of the instability that hallmarks it.