Description
This work is on the wall between the old fireplace and the window. He had picked up a stone from the sidewalk outside and he rubbed and scratched at the surface until some of the paint (and even some of the wall itself) came off. He calls this kind of drawing a "wall removal."
Whether he makes marks by adding to the wall or scratching part of it away, with his eyes opened or closed, he is still drawing.
About the Artist
William Anastasi is one of the founders of both Conceptual and Minimal Art - relevant works were made before the movements were named. These works, starting in 1961, include
Relief and
Microphone, among the earliest examples of Conceptual Art. Between 1963 and 1966, we have
Sink - a clear demonstration of entropy - and
Issue and
Trespass - important forerunners to an entire class of works involving deconstruction.
Sink (which combines his Conceptual and Minimal approaches) and
En Route, are among the earliest forays into Minimal Art. Holding that after Duchamp there was no earthly reason why a blind man could not be an artist, his unsighted drawings were also started in 1963. His 1966/67
Six Sites broke the ground for an entire genre of exhibitions under the rubric Site Specific. Underlying his practice is his sense that the only thing that interests him about taste is that it is always changing.
