100,000 minutes
James Lee Byars
1969
100,000 minutes
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  As readers turn the opening pages of 100,000 Minutes, they encounter a succession of alternative titles James Lee Byars considered for the work: or The Big Sample of Byars; or 1/2 an Autobiography (a ...
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100,000 minutes
James Lee Byars
1969
Antwerp: Anny De Decker and Wide White Space
Unpaginated [200 pages]
26.7 × 20.7 cm
Undisclosed edition of 250

 


As readers turn the opening pages of 100,000 Minutes, they encounter a succession of alternative titles James Lee Byars considered for the work: or The Big Sample of Byars; or 1/2 an Autobiography (a reference to the artist's age of thirty-seven, then considered the statistical midpoint of an American lifespan); and or The First Paper of Philosophy. The publication originated in Byars's first European exhibition at the Wide White Space Gallery in Antwerp, which consisted of three performances. During the final week, the artist sat behind an opening cut into a gallery wall, painted the same distinctive pink as the book's pages, and wrote in public. The texts reproduced in this volume were composed during this performance. Some recount episodes from his life, while others take the form of short and witty philosophical aphorisms:


 


"At first sight, do you perceive the full potential of a circumstance?"


"I went to Oxford just to find out what questions existed in the philosophy department."


"If you ask for something that doesn't exist, you deserve it on the intelligence of the request."


"I wear a black leather suit and like clear light bulbs; do you think I'm Wittgenstein's ghost, too?"


 


In a 1969 interview with Geert Bekaert and Walter Van Dijk (Streven, vol. 22), Byars described the book as "a sample" rather than the story of an entire life. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, he conceived of philosophy as an ongoing process of inquiry rather than a means of arriving at fixed conclusions. The title reflects his fascination with numbers (particularly large, rounded figures), which he valued less for their mathematical precision than for their poetic and symbolic resonance. For Byars, 100,000 Minutes signified possibility rather than measurement, just as his imagined possession of the complete 1-million-word Oxford English Dictionary—a dream he shared in the same interview—expressed a desire to inhabit the totality of language rather than to master it.

Antwerp: Anny De Decker and Wide White Space
Unpaginated [200 pages]
26.7 × 20.7 cm
Undisclosed edition of 250

 

As readers turn the opening pages of 100,000 Minutes, they encounter a succession of alternative titles James Lee Byars considered for the work: or The Big Sample of Byars; or 1/2 an Autobiography (a reference to the artist's age of thirty-seven, then considered the statistical midpoint of an American lifespan); and or The First Paper of Philosophy. The publication originated in Byars's first European exhibition at the Wide White Space Gallery in Antwerp, which consisted of three performances. During the final week, the artist sat behind an opening cut into a gallery wall, painted the same distinctive pink as the book's pages, and wrote in public. The texts reproduced in this volume were composed during this performance. Some recount episodes from his life, while others take the form of short and witty philosophical aphorisms:

 

"At first sight, do you perceive the full potential of a circumstance?"

"I went to Oxford just to find out what questions existed in the philosophy department."

"If you ask for something that doesn't exist, you deserve it on the intelligence of the request."

"I wear a black leather suit and like clear light bulbs; do you think I'm Wittgenstein's ghost, too?"

 

In a 1969 interview with Geert Bekaert and Walter Van Dijk (Streven, vol. 22), Byars described the book as "a sample" rather than the story of an entire life. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, he conceived of philosophy as an ongoing process of inquiry rather than a means of arriving at fixed conclusions. The title reflects his fascination with numbers (particularly large, rounded figures), which he valued less for their mathematical precision than for their poetic and symbolic resonance. For Byars, 100,000 Minutes signified possibility rather than measurement, just as his imagined possession of the complete 1-million-word Oxford English Dictionary—a dream he shared in the same interview—expressed a desire to inhabit the totality of language rather than to master it.

DESCRIPTION

 

As readers turn the opening pages of 100,000 Minutes, they encounter a succession of alternative titles James Lee Byars considered for the work: or The Big Sample of Byars; or 1/2 an Autobiography (a reference to the artist's age of thirty-seven, then considered the statistical midpoint of an American lifespan); and or The First Paper of Philosophy. The publication originated in Byars's first European exhibition at the Wide White Space Gallery in Antwerp, which consisted of three performances. During the final week, the artist sat behind an opening cut into a gallery wall, painted the same distinctive pink as the book's pages, and wrote in public. The texts reproduced in this volume were composed during this performance. Some recount episodes from his life, while others take the form of short and witty philosophical aphorisms:

 

"At first sight, do you perceive the full potential of a circumstance?"

"I went to Oxford just to find out what questions existed in the philosophy department."

"If you ask for something that doesn't exist, you deserve it on the intelligence of the request."

"I wear a black leather suit and like clear light bulbs; do you think I'm Wittgenstein's ghost, too?"

 

In a 1969 interview with Geert Bekaert and Walter Van Dijk (Streven, vol. 22), Byars described the book as "a sample" rather than the story of an entire life. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, he conceived of philosophy as an ongoing process of inquiry rather than a means of arriving at fixed conclusions. The title reflects his fascination with numbers (particularly large, rounded figures), which he valued less for their mathematical precision than for their poetic and symbolic resonance. For Byars, 100,000 Minutes signified possibility rather than measurement, just as his imagined possession of the complete 1-million-word Oxford English Dictionary—a dream he shared in the same interview—expressed a desire to inhabit the totality of language rather than to master it.

Antwerp: Anny De Decker and Wide White Space
Unpaginated [200 pages]
26.7 × 20.7 cm
Undisclosed edition of 250

 

As readers turn the opening pages of 100,000 Minutes, they encounter a succession of alternative titles James Lee Byars considered for the work: or The Big Sample of Byars; or 1/2 an Autobiography (a reference to the artist's age of thirty-seven, then considered the statistical midpoint of an American lifespan); and or The First Paper of Philosophy. The publication originated in Byars's first European exhibition at the Wide White Space Gallery in Antwerp, which consisted of three performances. During the final week, the artist sat behind an opening cut into a gallery wall, painted the same distinctive pink as the book's pages, and wrote in public. The texts reproduced in this volume were composed during this performance. Some recount episodes from his life, while others take the form of short and witty philosophical aphorisms:

 

"At first sight, do you perceive the full potential of a circumstance?"

"I went to Oxford just to find out what questions existed in the philosophy department."

"If you ask for something that doesn't exist, you deserve it on the intelligence of the request."

"I wear a black leather suit and like clear light bulbs; do you think I'm Wittgenstein's ghost, too?"

 

In a 1969 interview with Geert Bekaert and Walter Van Dijk (Streven, vol. 22), Byars described the book as "a sample" rather than the story of an entire life. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, he conceived of philosophy as an ongoing process of inquiry rather than a means of arriving at fixed conclusions. The title reflects his fascination with numbers (particularly large, rounded figures), which he valued less for their mathematical precision than for their poetic and symbolic resonance. For Byars, 100,000 Minutes signified possibility rather than measurement, just as his imagined possession of the complete 1-million-word Oxford English Dictionary—a dream he shared in the same interview—expressed a desire to inhabit the totality of language rather than to master it.

MORE BOOKS

 

As readers turn the opening pages of 100,000 Minutes, they encounter a succession of alternative titles James Lee Byars considered for the work: or The Big Sample of Byars; or 1/2 an Autobiography (a reference to the artist's age of thirty-seven, then considered the statistical midpoint of an American lifespan); and or The First Paper of Philosophy. The publication originated in Byars's first European exhibition at the Wide White Space Gallery in Antwerp, which consisted of three performances. During the final week, the artist sat behind an opening cut into a gallery wall, painted the same distinctive pink as the book's pages, and wrote in public. The texts reproduced in this volume were composed during this performance. Some recount episodes from his life, while others take the form of short and witty philosophical aphorisms:

 

"At first sight, do you perceive the full potential of a circumstance?"

"I went to Oxford just to find out what questions existed in the philosophy department."

"If you ask for something that doesn't exist, you deserve it on the intelligence of the request."

"I wear a black leather suit and like clear light bulbs; do you think I'm Wittgenstein's ghost, too?"

 

In a 1969 interview with Geert Bekaert and Walter Van Dijk (Streven, vol. 22), Byars described the book as "a sample" rather than the story of an entire life. Influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, he conceived of philosophy as an ongoing process of inquiry rather than a means of arriving at fixed conclusions. The title reflects his fascination with numbers (particularly large, rounded figures), which he valued less for their mathematical precision than for their poetic and symbolic resonance. For Byars, 100,000 Minutes signified possibility rather than measurement, just as his imagined possession of the complete 1-million-word Oxford English Dictionary—a dream he shared in the same interview—expressed a desire to inhabit the totality of language rather than to master it.

MORE BOOKS