Book Review Even a book by a leading expert on the avant-garde artist can’t tell us much about her personal life. April 28, 2026 — 5 min read Cover of Performing Chance: The Art of Alison Knowles In/Out of Fluxus by Nicole L. Woods (courtesy University of Chicago Press) In October 1962, Alison Knowles turned the simple act of preparing a salad into a new kind of art. Proposition #2: Make a Salad debuted at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts as part of the raucous Festival of Misfits, an event curated by poet and art dealer Victor Musgrave that introduced the Fluxus group to Great Britain. In the performance, the artist and her colleagues chopped and mixed the fresh ingredients in a pickle barrel on the stage of a small concert hall before plating and serving the dish to the roughly 100 people in attendance. The event was an early example of Knowles’s knack for creating unexpected situations that elevate everyday acts into something convivial and transcendent.…