Episode 7: ‘Performance Piece #8’ and ‘“T” Dictionary’ (1965) by Alison Knowles

Alison Knowles’s Performance Piece #8 (Summer 1965) exists as a language-based proposition published in the first Great Beat Pamphlet of the publishing house Something Else Press, as well as a “graphic performance” entitled The “T” Dictionary. The Dictionary was first made public in the book The Four Suits published by Something Else Press in 1965 and, the following year, it was presented in the show Intermedia at the Something Else Gallery. While the book version of the work can be consulted in the publication, the object-like version exhibited in the gallery is now lost. On the show’s checklist, the work was listed as a “from The Four Suits, 19 different silverprints.”

Recently, Knowles recreated the lost piece for the upcoming exhibition “Call It Something Else: Something Else Press, Inc. (1963-1974)” at the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid (MNCARS), curated by the narrator of this episode, Alice Centamore, in collaboration with Christian Xatrec, a New York-based artist. The new version of The “T” Dictionary consists of a panel across which Knowles reprinted the 44 pages from the piece in The Four Suits book.

Performance Piece #8 is one of the most unusual “propositions” of Knowles: it is a score, a graphic work, and a performance. Any kind of object could be suitable for the combination of “everything,” “nothing,” and “something” proposed by the piece. In its graphic version, across the over forty pages of The “T” Dictionary, Knowles used images of a tooth, geese in a trap, a suitcase, two cloaked figures, an elephant, pages of a dictionary or encyclopaedia, juxtaposed with texts and blank pages. The work, in all its iterations, is a prominent example of intermedial practices. As defined by Dick Higgins in 1964-65, an intermedial work operated between previously constituted aesthetic forms and media, exploring spaces between visual art and music, poetry and philosophy, sculpture and bookmaking, etc. Fittingly, The “T” Dictionary stands in a liminal space between collage, poetry, book design, silkscreening, and the language of a dictionary entry. Higgins would call it an “intermedium” par excellence.

In this episode Alice touches on diverse topics related to Knowles’s practice, and the Something Else Press and Gallery. She argues that Knowles’s “propositions” were starkly different from, for example, Yoko Ono’s “instruction pieces,” La Monte Young’s “compositions,” or George Brecht’s “events.” Recognizing this range of perspectives, Alice speaks about Knowles’ scores as “invitations” rather than impositions, interventions in the world of everyday life, objects, and languages that aim at sharing and openness. She also unravels captivating anecdotes about the workings of Dick Higgins’s enterprises, both the publishing house and the gallery/community centre located in the living room of his and Knowles’s house, and explains the ideas and preoccupations of their charismatic founder. 

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Alison Knowles is a visual artist, writer, and a founding member of Fluxus. While primarily recognized for her live works rooted in conviviality and participation, Knowles’s artistic explorations extend beyond performance, encompassing participatory installations, sculptures, poetry, sound works, and radio shows. Her pioneering roles in various realms of contemporary art have solidified her legacy as a visionary artist of her time. In 1963, Knowles produced what might be considered the earliest example of a book object: a can filled with texts and beans titled the Bean Rolls. Through her piece The House of Dust (1967), she established the field of computer-generated poetry. Among her most influential works is Make a Salad, performed for the first time in 1962. In this piece, Knowles prepares an enormous salad and serves it to the audience. For Shoes of Your Choice (1963), the artist asks participants to simply describe the shoes they are currently wearing. The Identical Lunch (1969) is based on her habit of consuming the same meal at the same time every day. Knowles’s works are held in the collections of numerous prominent museums and institutions worldwide.

Alice Centamore is a researcher, art historian, and archivist based in New York. She is the editor of A Something Else Reader, published by Primary Information in 2022. She has been conducting research on the books and activities of Dick Higgins’s publishing house Something Else Press in preparation for an exhibition at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (opening September 2023). Her research has been supported by a fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (2019).

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BIBLIOGRAPHY and references

• Corner, Philip, Alison Knowles, Ben Patterson, Tomas Schmit, The Four Suits, Dick Higgins, ed. New York: Something Else Press, 1965.
• Knowles, Alison. 1965. By Alison Knowles. New York: Something Else Press (2004 reprint by ubuweb).