Alison Knowles (1933–2025)
Fluxus pioneer, poet, and artist of everyday gestures

_{Alison Knowles. Let’s Make a Salad at WhiteBox, Broome Street (January 10, 2009). WBX Archive. CopyRight}

Alison Knowles, a founding member of Fluxus whose art transformed everyday gestures into collective poetry, has passed away. Known especially for her participatory work Make a Salad, she combined humor, chance, and nourishment—turning the act of making a meal into an inclusive, democratic performance of community.

Her legendary Let’s Make a Salad at WhiteBox, Broome Street (January 10, 2009), remains among the art space’s most cherished memories: hundreds gathered as Alison—apron-clad and radiant—chopped, tossed, and composed an immense green symphony across the floor, sharing the meal afterward as art and the New York Downtown community became one.

_{Alison Knowles. Let’s Make a Salad at WhiteBox, Broome Street (January 10, 2009). WBX Archive. CopyRight}

Born in New York in 1933, she studied with John Cage and co-founded Fluxus alongside George Maciunas, Nam June Paik, and Dick Higgins. Across seven decades, her work in performance, sound, poetry, and printmaking expanded the boundaries of art: an act of attention, a shared gesture, a recipe for living together.

Our Artistic Director, Juan Puntes, introduced to Alison by George and Susan Quasha, fondly recalls beloved timeless evenings at her Barrytown studio along the hills of the Hudson shore—the river’s amber light slipped through her studio windows and across the verdant porch, tinting our vodka-cranberry glasses as her Onion Skin sound pieces breathed beneath us—delicate, foot-stirred murmurs of paper and chance.

At WhiteBox and beyond, Alison embodied the art of generosity and, in her own words, of being “really fall-down funny.” Her salad fed a city hungry for meaning.

WhiteBox’s staff, friends, and board members extend our deepest sympathies to Alison’s family—daughters Jessica Higgins and Hannah Higgins; grandchildren Clara Joy, Nathalie, and Zoë; dear friend Joshua Selman, Acting Director of the Alison Knowles Studio; and son-in-law Joe Reinstein.

_{Alison Knowles. Let’s Make a Salad at WhiteBox, Broome Street (January 10, 2009). WBX Archive. CopyRight}