William Anastasi

William Anastasi (b. 1933, Philadelphia) is a pioneering figure of Conceptual and Minimal Art in the United States. Throughout his career, he has focused not on producing visually seductive objects, but on examining meditation, chance, and everyday experience as artistic processes. His celebrated “Subway Drawings”, as well as numerous site-specific installations and sound works, reflect his long-standing interest in the relationship between the human condition and the mechanisms used to record it.

After moving to New York in the early 1960s, Anastasi became increasingly aligned with the theoretical legacy of Marcel Duchamp, embracing ideas around indeterminacy, authorship, and the aesthetics of the ordinary. A close friend and peer of John Cage, he shared Cage’s commitment to redefining the boundaries between art, sound, and lived experience. In recognition of this affinity, Anastasi received the John Cage Award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts in 2010.

His work is held in major public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Art Institute of Chicago. Anastasi continues to live and work in New York.