Synopsis "Off Limits: Rutgers University and the Avant-Garde, 1957-63"
"Off Limits" is the first examination of the Rutgers group, artists who came together on the Rutgers University, New Brunswick, campus during the 1950s and revolutionized art practices and pedagogy. Based on interviews with artists, critics and dealers from the period, the book connects the initiation of major trends such as Happenings, Pop Art and Fluxus to the faculty, students, art curriculum and events at the university. It is the first book not only to look at the work of individual artists, but to consider how interactions between these artists influenced their groundbreaking work. Rutgers was clearly the place to be for experimental artists during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Allan Kaprow's first Happening was presented at Rutgers. Roy Lichtenstein's first Pop paintings, George Segal's earliest figurative tableaux, Lucas Samaras's radical exploration of media, and proto-Fluxus events by Robert Watts and George Brecht all took place on or near the campus. The innovative group rejected Abstract Expressionism for art based on the immediate experience of urban and industrial life, creating startling new artforms that remain startling and provocative. Led by the theoretical writings and art practice of Kaprow, the group created a New Art - art beyond the limits of the conventional and predictable, even beyond accepted notions of progressive trends. Lichtenstein recalls in an interview, "Kaprow shows us that art didn't have to look like art". Along with Lichtenstein, Kaprow, Segal and Watts taught at Rutgers and challenged one another to take art "off limits" - beyond the limits of the conventional, the predictable, as defined by Abstract Expressionist gesturalism. Their art incorporated the gritty environs, the technological, the everyday, making art radical, outrageous, disturbing and humorous. "Off Limits" features more than 140 illustrations, a chronology, selected bibliography and statements and interviews with Allan Kaprow, Roy Lichtenstein, Lucas Samaras, George Segal, Robert Whitman and Geoffrey Hendricks. Also included is "Project in Multiple Dimensions" by Kaprow, Watts and Brecht, a previously unpublished statement by the artists about their commitment to art and technology. "Off Limits" is a companion volume for a major exhibition at the Newark Museum in March 1999.
