Scores Project

Michael Gallope is associateprofessor in the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature atthe University of Minnesota. His most recent book is The Musician as Philosopher: New York's Vernacular Avant-Garde,1958-1978 (2024).Natilee Harren isassociate professor of contemporary art history and critical studies at theUniversity of Houston School of Art and author of FluxusForms: Scores, Multiples, and the Eternal Network (2020).John Hicks is alecturer in the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature atthe University of Minnesota.

This extraordinary digital publication illuminates the future ofperformance scholarship by helping us see, read, and hear the history of itsscores. Wrestling some 2,000 historical documents, as well as audio andvideo files, The Scores Project transforms and enriches ourunderstanding of the experimental, interdisciplinary furor of contemporary artfrom the 1950s to the 1970s. Drawn from the remarkably wide-ranging andfascinating archive assembled by the Getty Research Institute, The ScoresProject demonstrates the possibility of reaching beyond traditional arthistorical blind spots that have overlooked not only artists of color, women,and gender nonconformists but also the unruly sources of experimental art morebroadly. The book includes a terrific introduction as well as elevensuggestive scholarly essays that highlight individual artists, including AlisonKnowles, Yvonne Rainer, and Allan Kaprow, each of whom extended theexperimental musical scores of John Cage, La Monte Young, and Jackson Mac Lowto develop performance art, dance, and Happenings. I was especially delightedto see attention given to David Tudor's 1950s performances and the exuberantstarts and stops that characterized sound poetry in the 1960s and '70s. Theprint book is cross-referenced with the digital publication, creating a richlyresonant text for students, scholars, and all those interested in the historyof the avant-garde. - Peggy Phelan, Ann O'Day Maples Chair in the Arts, Professor ofEnglish and Theatre and Performance Studies, Stanford UniversityThe Scores Project is an essential research tool for anyoneinterested in the intersection of musical notation, art, poetry, and dance from1950 to 1975. For the hundreds of digitized objects, each has a carefullyresearched and easy-to-understand caption that implicates other works andartists in its sprawling information network. The Scores Project'sflexible and accessible design offers a treasure trove of primary documentsthat will help researchers at all levels produce historically grounded andopen-ended scholarship.- Hannah B. Higgins, Professor of Art, Universityof Illinois Chicago, and author of Fluxus Experience (2002)and The Grid Book (2009)