Beer, Art and Philosophy - Softcover

Marioni, Tom

3.76

34 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1891300172 ISBN 13: 9781891300172

Publisher: Crown Point Press, 2004

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Cultural writing. Art. Philosophy. "If you are stumped by contemporary art, have wondered why contemporary artists do the things they do, make the things they make, and think the way they think, this book is for you. Tom Marioni has created a book that is easy to read, fun, and engaging. In describing his own art and thinking process, Marioni - with his dry, quiet sense of humor - demystifies contemporary art without being academic or taken: the Picassoian road, which focuses on the painterly tradition, and the Duchampian road, which encompasses a more catholic view of what can be a fit subject for art inquiry. Marioni shows why the Duchampian road offers more riches for many artists, including himself. By incorporating the social and leisure aspects of real life into his art, and by rejecting the dominant cultural work ethic, Tom Marioni amalgamates art and life to create a sophisticated and unique philosophy"--Chris Burden.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

In a brochure for a 2005 exhibition titled; Sounds Like Drawing; at the Drawing Room in London, the show's curator, Anthony Huberman, describes Tom Marioni as;a seminal figure of the American conceptual art movement. He pioneered the use of social situations as art and explored performance as sculptural actions using sound, drawing, photography, and installation.; Thomas McEvilley in the introduction to Marioni s 2003 memoir, Beer, Art, and Philosophy, says that; in terms of the history of art, the moment of Marioni s arrival was the beginning of a new era. All the rules were about to be rewritten and he would be a part of it.; Marioni was born in 1937 in Cincinnati, Ohio, attended the Cincinnati Art Academy, and in 1959 moved to San Francisco, where he still lives. His first sound work, One Second Sculpture, 1969, was celebrated in the 2005 Lyon Biennial as presaging the work of many artists today who use sound and duration as subjects. His first museum show was in 1970 at the Oakland Museum of California. Titled; The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art,; it was an early example of social activity as art. Over the years, Marioni has been invited to repeat the work in various contexts around the world. In 1970 Marioni founded the Museum of Conceptual Art (MOCA), which he described at the time as ;a large-scale social work of art.; Until the museum closed in 1984, he organized many groundbreaking shows, including; Sound Sculpture As; in 1970. MOCA has entered history as the first alternative art space in the United States. Marioni had one-person shows in several significant venues for early conceptual art, among them the Richard Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh in 1972 and Gallery Foksal in Warsaw in 1975. In 1977 he had a solo show, ;The Sound of Flight,; at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in San Francisco. He has done installation/performance works at the Whitechapel Gallery in London (1972), the Institute of Contemporary Art in London (1973), the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (1980), and the Folkwang Museum in Essen, Germany (1982), among other museums. Marioni was included in important sound art shows:;For Eyes and Ears; (1980) at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin, ;Live to Air; (1982) at the Tate Gallery in London, and;From Sound to Image; (1985) at the Stuttgart Staatsgalerie in Germany. His work was shown in ;Out of Actions: Between Performance and the Object; in 1998, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Drawing is central to Marioni s art, and in 1999 he had a drawing retrospective at the Mills College Art Museum in Oakland. His prints have been published by Crown Point Press since 1974. In 2006 the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati presented a survey exhibition of his work since 1968. Marioni was included in ;The Art of Participation: 1950 to Now,; in 2008 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and in 2009 in ;The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989; at the Guggenheim Museum, New York. His work is in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stadtische Kunsthalle in Mannheim, Germany, and other museums. He is represented by Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco and the Margarete Roeder Gallery in New York.

-Crown Point Press website by Kathan Brown

Review:

This art memoir is also truly an interesting personal memoir, for Marioni starts with his life as a child in Cincinnati in the '40s, tells us about his family and friends, and brings us forward with him to the present. He recounts many interesting coincidences in his life where his life touches famous artists and architects early in his career, and then later he becomes friends with them or creates works that are part of their works like his relationship with John Cage and Marcel Duchamp and his commissioned sculpture for the Marin Civic Center, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. These stories and the explanations and descriptions of his many conceptual works of art and the circumstances surrounding their evolution and development, create a text of engaging interest with important historical context and documentary evidence. ---Frank Cebulski, Sculpture magazine, July/August 2004

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.