William Anastasi (b. 1933)

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone," the philosopher Blaise Pascal famously noted. William Anastasi is acutely aware of this idea and approached his subway drawings and other meditative works from the 1960s onward with this concept in mind. In 1987, the artist spent exactly two hours drawing on a sheet of paper measuring over 7 feet wide with a bright yellow crayon. The result is titled, Two Hours with a Yellow Crayon on Black Paper, and is an expansive work invoking chance relationships and eschewing overt intentionality. Anastasi, a friend and fan of the late composer John Cage, once said, "All art is conceptual." With this timed drawing, we witness Anastasi's serendipitous homage to meditative states and freedom of movement.