American artist William Anastasi (1933-2023) is considered a pioneer of conceptual art. From the early 1960s, Anastasi engaged in an analytical and self-reflexive practice using a variety of media: sculpture, photography, video, drawing, painting, installation, and performance. A pioneer of the New York conceptual art scene, he had four highly acclaimed solo exhibitions at Virginia Dawn Gallery including one in 1967, in which he reproduced images of the gallery walls and installed them on the gallery's walls, demonstrating a radical tautological logic. Born in Philadelphia, he discovered the work of
Marcel Duchamp at an early age, which would remain a lasting passion that he eruditely interpreted in his essay
Duchamp on the Jarry Road (Artforum, 1991). From early on, Anastasi's work was imbued with the literature of James Joyce—cited in his series of Bababad paintings, originating in 1984—and
Alfred Jarry. An insatiable draughtsman, he developed a performative practice of drawing, carried out in motion or blind - most notable are his Subway Drawings produced whilst sitting in the subway, eyes closed. Sharing his taste for chance, the unintended and for chess, he had a long friendship with
John Cage, with whom he collaborated on his performance You are in 1978. William Anastasi's work has been included in major American collections including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art, as well as various European museum collections. In the 1980s, several galleries represented his work, including the Bess Cutler Gallery (New York), the Stalke Galleri (Copenhagen) and the Scott Hanson Gallery (New York). Galerie Jocelyn Wolff (Romainville), Thomas Rehbein Galerie (Cologne), Galerie Hubert Winter (Vienna), Stalke Galleri (Copenhagen), Mazzoli Gallery (Modena).
