Brecht, George

▪ 2009

George MacDiarmid 

      American conceptual artist and sculptor

born Aug. 27, 1926, New York, N.Y.

died Dec. 5, 2008, Cologne, Ger.

created art from an approach that valued fluid boundaries between artistic disciplines and playful engagement with the viewer. Brecht attended (1946–50) the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science and took a job as a research chemist but soon became inspired by the works of avant-garde composer John Cage. Although Brecht's own attempts at composition were short-lived, he retained from Cage both an interest in chance and a focus on multimedia “events” as defining elements of his work, and by the early 1960s he was affiliated with the Fluxus movement, a like-minded group of conceptual artists. Brecht was especially known for his sculptural installations of everyday objects and for his use of written instructions, which he called “event scores,” in the creation of art.

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