Artist
Alison Knowles
American, 1933–2025
Alison Knowles was an American artist. 4 works are cataloged here, principally at Museum of Modern Art. Alison Knowles was born in Scarsdale.
Alison Knowles (April 29, 1933 – October 29, 2025) was an American visual artist known for her installations, performances, soundworks, and publications. Knowles was a founding member of the Fluxus movement, an international network of artists who aspired to merge different artistic media and disciplines. Criteria that have come to distinguish her work as an artist are the arena of performance, the indeterminacy of her event scores and the element of tactile participation.
She graduated from Pratt Institute in New York with an honors degree in fine art. In May 2015, she was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by Pratt. In the 1960s, she was an active participant in New York City's downtown art scene, collaborating with influential artists such as John Cage and Marcel Duchamp.
During this time she began producing event scores, or performances that rework the everyday into art. Knowles's inclusion of visual, aural, and tactile elements sets her art apart from the work of other Fluxus artists. From July 20, 2022, to February 12, 2023, Knowles was the subject of by Alison Knowles: A Retrospective (1960–2022) at the University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
Works by Alison Knowles
Collections represented
