what's happening...

text and images of stone ceremony, by milan knizak, from source magazine issue 11, 1971:

on a bottom of an abandoned rock-quarry stone circles are compiling. everybody works on his own circle. after finishing it people get into their circles and silently stand there, sit there and finally draw on the ground inside their magic sighns. after that they leave stone circles and with a monothony buzzing climb up to the rock cliff above the quarry from where they watch their stone circles left alone down on the bottom.

been thinking a lot about happenings and how such things could exist more on the side of ritual than theatre. a group of people simply and quietly making circles of stones, all in the pit of a landscape and then all at different paces making their way up to a ridge until everyone is out of the pit, and the circles are quiet and distant - like small drops of rain hitting the surface of water.

it reminds me a little of improvised music, being in kind of a mental listening space together, and coming out of it though various pauses individually.

as an alternative to the fussy sculpture in nature photo ops of andy goldsworthy, knizak's work feels less calculated, and more genuine (i.e. it doesn't smell like art.). it's more communal, and it somehow feels distanced from the irreverent actions of most fluxus activities, as well as knizak's more well known works. it's introverted, more poetic, and potentially quite beautiful.