Michael Asher is one of the most important and influential conceptual artists in the United States. Since the late 1960s he has created projects that examine how museums and galleries display art and how institutional practices affect our understanding of art. Rather than creating objects, he works with the museum’s architecture and physical structure, a strategy known as institutional critique. Asher’s “post-studio” classes at California Institute of the Arts, as well as his writings, have influenced a generation of diverse artists—including painters, sculptors, and political artists—encouraging them always to question the social and historical contexts in which they work.

—

Michael Asher passed away in 2012.