Oldenburg judged his Happening a failure because too many people came.

Evidence

Moviehouse was Oldenburg’s last and most conceptually refined Happening—an environmental shadow play. Patrons were seated in a side section of the theater. The action was staged in the larger central section where eight performers enacted the roles of ushers and spectators. The theater was dark; the 16mm projector ran without film, producing a conical beam of white light that served to cast the performers’ shadows on the screen. By way of accompaniment, an amateur pianist played the sing-song folk ditty “Oats, Peas, Beans and Barley Grow.” Oldenburg did not consider the piece a success precisely because it was. Too many people attended. — J. Hoberman, Everything Is Now, 1945

Categorization

• DEFINE: Concretely shows what a Happening was: environmental, process-oriented, and success measured inversely by attendance — useful for explaining the scene’s economics.
• SHARE: For a friend into Fluxus/performance art — the ‘failed precisely because it was successful, too many people attended’ inversion is a classic example.