On Art and The Pure Beauty of Existence

On Challenging Art - Marcel Duchamp

Creation of Fountain began when, accompanied by the artist Joseph Stella and art collector Walter Arensberg, he purchased a standard Bedfordshire model urinal from the J.L. Mott Iron Works, 118 Fifth Avenue. When the urinal was in his studio at 33 West 67th Street, he turned it 90 degrees from its normal position, and wrote on it "R. Mutt 1917".

On Embracing Concept - Joseph Kosuth

The piece consists of a chair, a photograph of this chair, and an enlarged dictionary definition of the word "chair". Crucial to the work is the fact that the photograph depicts the chair as it is actually installed in the room. The piece holds within it the context of its own display, and thus changes each time it is installed in a new venue.

On Immaterial works - Yves Klein

“Recently my work with color has led me, in spite of myself, to search little by little, with some assistance (from the observer, from the translator), for the realization of matter, and I have decided to end the battle. My paintings are now invisible and I would like to show them in a clear and positive manner, in my next Parisian exhibition at Iris Clert's. ”

In another act that became known as an Yves Klein artwork, he offered and managed to sell empty spaces in the city in exchange for gold. He wanted his buyers to experience The Void by selling them empty space. In his view this experience could only be paid for in the purest material: gold. In order to restore the "natural order" that he had unbalanced by selling the empty space (that was now not "empty" anymore), Klein threw the gold into the river Seine.

On Body Art - Chris Burden

Several of Burden's performance pieces were considered somewhat controversial at the time. Shoot, for example, involved Burden allowing an assistant to fire a loaded rifle at his arm. Another such "danger piece" was Doomed, in which Burden lay motionless in a museum gallery under a slanted sheet of glass, with a clock running nearby. Unbeknownst to the museum owners, the concept of Doomed was that Chris was prepared to remain in that position until someone from the museum staff interfered in some way with the piece. Forty-five hours later, a museum guard placed a pitcher of water next to Burden, thus ending the piece.

On Culture Jamming - Billboard Liberation Front

In September 1977, 19 year old Jack Napier and 43-year-old Irving Glikk attended an event sponsored by the mysterious San Francisco Suicide Club entitled: "Enter the Unknown". The two friends along with 24 other nascent urban adventurers were blindfolded, driven to an inner city freeway exchange and cajoled into climbing onto a factory roof where they improved two existing billboard messages. This gaggle of earnest though inexperienced drive-by copywriters are apprehended by the authorities and become known as the Max Factor 26.

On Material Wealth - The K Foundation

On the 23 August 1994, in a boathouse on the Scottish island of Jura, Drummond and Cauty incinerated £1,000,000 in cash. The burning was witnessed by an old friend of Drummond's, freelance journalist Jim Reid, who subsequently wrote an article about the ceremony for The Observer. It was filmed on Super 8 by their friend Gimpo. Reid admitted to first feeling shock and guilt about the burning, which quickly turned to boredom. The money took well over an hour to burn as Drummond and Cauty fed £50 notes into the fire. Drummond later said that only about £900,000 of the money was actually burnt – the rest flew straight up the chimney.



Entry put in memories, and to be added to as I find or remember things that interest me.