Formalism First Pops Its Head Onto the Scene with Georges Braque and Picasso

Simultaneously, a Japanese art group had been experimenting along the very same lines. Shozo Shimamoto, for example, was smashing jars of paint against canvas as a Happening. In Paris, Yves Klein invited the public to watch nude models covered in blue paint roll around on a canvas. Performance art was getting weirder and weirder. These abstract, sometimes symbolic Happenings became a new chapter in art history by combining fine art with movement and performance. Spontaneity was the goal of this new form of art, and the experience of making art was the art, not the finished product.
Jean Tinguely was also a big supporter of this new wave of art. His Homage to New York machine, a contraption that's purpose was to self destruct embodied the period wonderfully. Spectators cheered as the machine was "set free" and exploded, not quite as intended, requiring firmen to put out the flames. Perhaps the unpredictability was the very thing that made it a success.
…