European Happenings found a friendly environment on the streets of Amsterdam, where they blended into a heady brew of art and protest not unlike the one fermenting across the waves in Greenwich Village (see south table case). Among the movements that emerged was the Provos, an amorphous group of radicals and anarchists who employed Happenings as a central tactic in their strategy of provocation, inciting incidents of police brutality as a means to win publicity and sympathy for their cause, particularly among the youth. Another element in the mix was New Babylon (at left), a project launched by Constant Nieuwenhuys (known simply as Constant), one of the founders of the Situationist International, who had left the movement when tensions over the role of art started to heat up in 1960. The Provos eagerly joined New Babylon (above), which sought to realize the Situationist utopia of permanent dérive by constructing a new city devoted to the human need for play. Simon Vinkenoog, one of the...