In this letter to Emmett Williams, Alison Knowles describes an early work, BLINK (1963), that demonstrates the force and impossibility of “the identical,” for which she, George Brecht, and Robert Watts created “10 perfectly identical paintings. . . . Each of us is doing a strip 6” wide, on an 18” square. The idea of this is something like an anti-gallery thing, anti-painting too. . . . These paintings could be easily duplicated for anyone at 10 or 15 bucks apiece. Since they are scrupulously identical, all the gallery has, Ferus or 3rd rail or Kornblee or what have you, is one of a few examples. It sort of undermines the whole gallery prestige thing entirely.” Here Knowles indicates that her exploration of “the identical” is at the same time a critique of the commodification of art. In this letter Knowles also offers a vivid description of the performances she saw at the YAM Festival. Her tepid appraisal of Allan Kaprow’s Tree (1963), “one of his large scale vaguely allegorical things,” hints at a future divide between those artists who identified with Fluxus and those who identified with “happenings.”
© Alison Knowles.
