In 1961, filmmaker Gene Bernofsky and artist Clark Richert, art students from the University of Kansas, developed an art concept they called Drop Art or droppings. Informed by the " happenings" of Allan Kaprow and the impromptu performances a few years earlier of John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and Buckminster Fuller at Black Mountain College, Drop Art began when Richert and Bernofsky started painting rocks and dropping them from a loft roof onto the sidewalk of Lawrence Kansas's main drag — watching the reactions of passersby. Early Drop Art included such pieces as Egg Drop and Pendulum (pictured) .
Drop Art eventually led to the creation of Drop City, an experimental artist's community founded in 1965 near Trinidad, Colorado. The intention was to create a live-in work of Drop Art.