Proposition: Let’s Make a Salad
This event score, which was executed at the opening night of the exhibition by Creating Commons, is an homage to famous Fluxis artist Alison Knowles. Premiered in 1962 at a Fluxus concert held at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts, it proposed the obvious: to make a salad, by the artist, for the audience. The idea was to connect high art with daily life. “Everybody can enter into it by eating it,” explained Knowles. Since then it has been re-enacted by the artist herself on many occasions, amongst them at Tate Modern in 2008 where she had to make a “Giant Salad” to serve the many visitors. The work—equal parts musical arrangement and participatory performance—entails prepping and tossing vegetables in dressing and serving it to attendees. John Cage, who co-edited the famous book Notations with Alison Knowles, a first collection of experimental scores, declared the salad score to be “New Music.”