Parker Gallery

Parker Gallery is proud to present a group exhibition in tribute to the late William T. Wiley (1937–2021). The exhibition features a constellation of artists, including intimates, acquaintances and many without personal connection to Wiley, bound toghether by their enigmatic and curious spirits. The artists include child- hood friends (William Allan and Robert Hudson), fellow professors, colleagues and co-conspirators (Robert Arneson, Mike Henderson, Ed Kienholz, Peter Saul, Carlos Villa, H.C. Westermann), and former students (Deborah Butterfield, Mary Heilmann, Bruce Nauman, Maija Peeples-Bright), alongside contemporary artists representing several generations of kindred spirits (Melissa Brown, Ann Craven, Jimmie Durham, Llyn Foulkes, Piero Gilardi, Peter Halley, Hugh Hayden, Chris- tine Sun Kim, Calvin Marcus, Ree Morton, Laura Owens, Nancy Shaver, Sue Wil- liams, Amy Yao).

What is to be done for William T. Wiley? The question was originally pro- posed by the artist himself, as an invitation to others to create an artwork on his behalf. Not an artwork that he would ascribe his name to, but one with his name inscribed on its surface. The artworks he requested were to be “a plaque or plans for one...which would read ‘Nothing is to be done for Wm. T. Wiley.’” At the time he wrote to his peers, Wiley was seeking a new approach and perhaps anticipating a fresh perspective from an outsider’s point of view. Of the three works received in response to Wiley’s proposal (from Robert Arneson, Bruce Nauman and H.C. Westermann), those by Westermann and Arneson are included in this exhibition, shown together for the first time.

The artists who responded to Wiley’s provocation included: a colleague on faculty at U.C. Davis (Arneson), a recent graduate student (Nauman) and an older artist that Wiley greatly admired (Westermann). Wiley’s laid-back, anything-goes, pun-riddled approach to life and art left an impression on those he encountered. And his influence continues to resonate. This exhibition also features works re- alized specifically for the occasion by artists who did not know Wiley personally, such as Melissa Brown and Peter Halley.

It is helpful, possibly essential, to locate the work of William T. Wiley to its point of origin—regional (San Francisco Bay Area), yet emphatically site-specific (a cabin-like studio, framed with windows looking out into the woods of Marin County, alongside a sliver of a creek). The proximity of the studio space to its natural setting was so close and dependent as to be somewhat interchangeable