For my artist research project I chose to study Yoko Ono. Many people know her famously as John Lennon's wife, but her conceptual artwork is the real reason that people should know her name.
Some of Ono's most famous works are her publication Grapefruit (1964) and Painting to Hammer a Nail (1961). As a conceptual artist, Ono played with Barthes' idea of the "death of an author." Her book, Grapefruit, was compiled of instructions that the reader may choose to follow (or not) to create their own art works. In this case, Grapefruit is passive, and the text that evolves from it is active.
Her painting, Painting to Hammer a Nail, was hung in multiple museum/gallery spaces with the instructions "visitors are invited to pound a nail into this painting.” Each rendition of this conceptual work by Ono would produce a completely original finished piece.
My favorite thing that I found while researching this painting was the rendition of it that occurred at the Seattle Art Museum in 2009. In this case, visitors were so liberated by the break in rules of how they can interact with art that they took it further and nailed business cards, gum wrappers, notes, and posters to the wall around the painting.
