In its structure, Seven Kinds Of Sympathy concurs with Rates Of Exchange, that is, an alternating schema that isolates the actions of two characters, a man and a woman, in a private space, then confronts them within a site of exchange and redistribution. Each action is performed only once (nothing justifies repetition, here – in this respect, Allan Kaprow distinguishes his “non-theatrical” actions from performance, since his work does not involve either the immediate presence of an audience, or a physical or institutional environment, nor does it involve repetition or rehearsal), then attributed to the other in a kind of intimate trade, a transport of “kindness”.

In seven segments, Kaprow shows here how each individual invests their own territory, then places themselves in a position of communicating this personal experience elsewhere – an act that is always expressed in Allan Kaprow's work through elementary gestures, the degree zero of learning and the relationship to the body, sexuality, environment, speech, and the social bond. Allan Kaprow's experiments are based on a combination of humour, vacuity, and disinterest. Stripped of all connections to the art world, they therefore offer and enable a simple attentiveness to the world.

Stéphanie Moisdon