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As part of Wolf Vostell’s happening Salat, performance artist Allan Kaprow embarked on a train journey from Cologne to Aachen on November 7, 1970, taking with him 25 crates of lettuce. Upon arrival, a doctor examined him and conducted X-rays before he returned with the lettuce. The journey was repeated the next day, but this time, the lettuce and not the artist was examined for traces of contamination and radioactivity. This action continued for nearly a year to observe the effects of disease on the two subjects. On the final day, November 6, 1971, the documentary material from this action was displayed at the René Block Gallery in Berlin as part of the exhibition Anatomie des Happenings Salat (Anatomy of the Happening Lettuce), which not only documented the course of the happening, but also included the medical records, the 25 crates of lettuce, and a bronze cast of a 92-day-old lettuce.

Text: Friederike Fast, Associate Researcher and Curator, based on: Annette Jael Lehmann, Rudolf Fischer, Anna-Lena Werner, Marcelo Rezende, Helene Romakin (Ed.) Einladung – Archiv als Ereignis, Archiv der Avantgarden – Egidio Marzona, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Freie Universität Berlin, Spector Books, Leipzig, 2024, https://ada-invitations.de/