Five points make a man (1994)

A performance artist serenely sits on a chair in the gallery. At some moment she rises to place five drops of water on the gallery floor in the form of a “man”, each drop representing the head, two arms and two legs. The woman returns to the chair and waits until the drops have evaporated, at which time she rises again to repeat the action.

Over thirty years after his last institutional exhibition in Italy, Pirelli HangarBicocca presents a retrospective dedicated to James Lee Byars, showcasing large-scale works created between 1974 and 1997 from international museum collections. James Lee Byars (Detroit, Michigan, 1932 – Cairo, 1997), one of the most influential American artists from the 1960s onwards, shaped an entire generation within conceptual and performance art. Through the use of diverse media, Byars created a mystical-aesthetic reflection on concepts of perfection and cyclicality, and on the human figure, often engaging the public directly in temporary actions or large-scale interventions.