William Anastasi: This Is Not My Signature

Anastasi is a conceptual artist who has—well—conceived innumerable formal gambits that trap our vague thoughts in precise conundrums, which is to say, in physical manifestations that expose their inherent ideational paradoxes, which he ingeniously presents to us for all to see—and think about. Some of these gambits share characteristics with those of other artists of his period and orientation, raising questions of who did this or that ‘first.’” —Robert Storr William Anastasi (born in 1933 in Philadelphia) is the author of a prolific body of work. A major figure in conceptualism and in many respects one of its initiators, his trajectory cannot be solely confined to this chapter in the history of contemporary art. The book revisits, through the prism of multiple voices, the various aspects of an approach that unfolded with the use of complementary mediums. Drawing coexists with photography and “new” technologies, alongside objects, paintings, and installations. Within this corpus to be (re)discovered, sounds, images, and language, as well as artifacts, protocols, and processes, convey inquiries related to space and time, representation, and perception. With contributions from Dove Bradshaw, Chiara Costa, Béatrice Gross, Valérie Mavridorakis, Hélène Meisel, Sébastien Pluot, Julia Robinson, Robert Storr, and Erik Verhagen.