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Happ Ours

Happ Ours
/19
    • Happ Ours
    • Happ naš
  • 1967
  • 33 b&w photographs
  • 18 × 24 cm
“Happ Ours” (Zagreb, 1967) was the first happening carried out by Tomislav Gotovac. The artist authored its scenario together with Ivo Lukas and Hrvoje Šercar, who enacted the happening in the basement of Ilica No. 12. Before the audience arrived, the room was filled with incense. Additionally, empty snail shells were placed on every chair and across the floor, there was a slide projection with an image from Playboy magazine on the wall, and music by Chris Connor was playing. There were also balls made of newspaper, six chickens in a cage, and a woman sitting on a chair and smoking a cigarette. The three men then came out, and their task was to use axes to destroy a cabinet that had been placed there. They also played instruments and threw the newspaper balls at the audience. The audience threw the balls back, thereby initiating an interaction with the performers. The three men subsequently took the chickens out of the cage one after the other and threw them at the audience as well. As the chickens were anemic, they made no sounds. The audience threw only two of the chickens back. The original idea of the happening was to kill the chickens and smear the blood all over the wall, but this did not occur since the electricity unexpectedly went out for 15 minutes. This incident ended up concluding the happening. W.S.