Tom Marioni (born 1937,

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, United States) is an American artist and educator, known for his conceptual artwork. Marioni was active in the emergence of

Conceptual Art Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...

movement in the 1960s. He founded the Museum of Conceptual Art (MOCA) in San Francisco from 1970 until 1984. He is currently living and working out of

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

History

Marioni was born 1937 in Cincinnati, Ohio, into an Italian American family with three brothers. His father John "Sereno" Marioni was a general practitioner doctor and "Sunday painter" and his mother sang opera and played the harp and the piano. As a child Tom learned to play the violin and in middle school he trained with the Cincinnati Conservatory - around this time he also became interested in

Jazz music Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a maj ...

. He was raised

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

and attended a Catholic Boys School from grade school through high school. Two of his brother went on to become artists,

Paul Marioni Paul Marioni (b. 1941 Cincinnati, Ohio) is an American artist who works in the medium of glass. Biography Marioni graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 1967 with a degree in philosophy. He became a filmmaker, then started working with ...

and Joseph Marioni, and a nephew,

Dante Marioni Dante Marioni (born March 3, 1964 in Mill Valley, California) is an American glass artist. Biography Dante Marioni grew up among many artistic influences. His father, Paul Marioni, was involved in the American studio glass movement and, as a ...

. Marioni received his art training at the

Art Academy of Cincinnati The Art Academy of Cincinnati is a private college of art and design in Cincinnati, Ohio, accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. It was founded as the McMicken School of Design in 1869, and was a department of the U ...

between 1955 and 1959. He moved to San Francisco, California after graduating in 1959. He was stationed in Germany with the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

from 1960 to 1963. The Museum of Conceptual Art (MOCA) was founded in the 1970 by Marioni, who described conceptual art as "social artwork". From 1975 – 1982, he was editor of Vision, an art journal published by

Crown Point Press Crown Point Press is a long-established printmaking workshop, primarily creating and publishing etched, intaglio prints. Located in San Francisco since 1986, Crown Point Press was first established in 1962 in Richmond California by Kathan Brown. ...

. From 1986 until 1971, he served as the curator at the Richmond Art Center in Richmond, California. He used the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

and

alter-ego An alter ego (Latin for "other I", "doppelgänger") means an alternate self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other self, one with a different ...

Alan Fish in some early performances. Famous works by Marioni include: "One Second Sculpture" (1969), "The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art" (1970). Marioni's work is included in many public museum collections including

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and wa ...

(SFMoMA),

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the ...

(FAMSF), among others.

Personal life

Marioni married to Kathan Brown of

in 1983, and he has three sons.

Publications

References

External links

TomMarioni.comTom Marioni collection of works
at

(SFMoMA) *Audio/Transcript
Oral history interview with Tom Marioni, 2017 December 21-22

Archives of American Art The Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 20 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washingt ...

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

* Video
Tom Marioni: The Act of Drinking Beer
on Vimeo * Video
The Third Mind: Interview with Tom Marioni
(2009), by 1937 births Living people Artists from the San Francisco Bay Area Modern artists American conceptual artists American people of Italian descent Artists from California {{US-artist-stub