William Anastasi

William Anastasi (b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1933) is an American visual artist keen in a wide range of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, photographic works, and text. He has lived and worked in New York City in the past the in the future 1960s and is known as "one of the most underrated conceptual artists of his generation".

His first solo exhibition took place in 1964 at the Betty Parsons gallery behind a unintended meeting following Philip Guston who recommended his feint to Parsons. Following this he had a number of exhibition at the Dwan Gallery from 1965 to 1970. In his prematurely career, Anastasi was largely influenced by Marcel Duchamp, whose put it on he first proverb at the Philadelphia Museum of Art during his teens.

His take steps is predominantly abstract and conceptual. Early works such as Relief (1961) and Issue (1966) incorporate the use of industrial and construction materials. His works are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum, the Walker Art Center, the National Gallery of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. In 2010 Anastasi was awarded the Foundation for Contemporary Arts John Cage Award, an unrestricted take over awarded biennially.

Currently exhibited works include "Nine Polaroid Photographs of a Mirror", currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.^{[needs update]} In 2007, he took portion in the artistic performance "Blind Date" at the White Box Gallery in New York. In the performance, he and fellow artiste Lucio Pozzi both drew dozens of artistic pieces blindfolded in an 8 hour long artistic duel.

In his in advance career, Anastasi was largely influenced by Marcel Duchamp, who inspired his shows at the Dwan Gallery from 1965 to 1970.

Anastasi was a close friend of composer John Cage who he first met in 1965 bearing in mind Cage heard that Anastasi was preparing an exhibition titled 'Sound Objects' and was avid in learning more. In 1977 Cage and Anastasi began playing chess daily Anastasi wrote the memoir The Cage Dialogues nearly their friendship.