Willoughby Sharp
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Willoughby Sharp (January 23, 1936 – December 17, 2008) was an American artist, independent curator, independent publisher (he was co-founder and co-editor of Avalanche Magazine with Liza Béar), gallerist, teacher, author, and telecom activist. ''Avalanche'' published interviews they conducted with contemporary artists such as
Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an influential American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational p ...
,
Dennis Oppenheim Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American conceptual artist, performance artist, earth artist, sculptor and photographer. Dennis Oppenheim's early artistic practice is an epistemological questioning about the natu ...
and
Yvonne Rainer Yvonne Rainer (born November 24, 1934) is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is regarded as challenging and experimental.
. Sharp also was contributing editor to four other publications: ''Impulse'' (1979–1981); ''Video magazine'' (1980–1982); ''Art Com'' (1984–1985), and the ''
East Village Eye The ''East Village Eye'' was a cultural magazine, published by editor-in-chief Leonard Abrams, in circulation from May, 1979 until January, 1987. Based in the East Village section of New York City, the publication covered a range of locally focus ...
'' (1984–1986). He published three monographs on contemporary artists, contributed to many exhibition catalogues, and wrote on art for ''
Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...
, ''
Art in America ''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It i ...
'', ''Arts magazine'', ''Laica Journal'', ''Quadrum'' and ''Rhobo''. He was editor of the ''Public Arts International/Free Speech'' documentary booklet in 1979. Sharp received numerous grants, awards, and fellowships; both as an individual or under the sponsorship of non-profit arts organizations.


Education

Sharp was born and raised in
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. He received his BA from
Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
in 1957, where he studied art history. He then undertook graduate study in art history at the
University of Paris , image_name = Coat of arms of the University of Paris.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of Arms , latin_name = Universitas magistrorum et scholarium Parisiensis , motto = ''Hic et ubique terrarum'' (Latin) , mottoeng = Here and a ...
(1957–58), the
University of Lausanne The University of Lausanne (UNIL; french: links=no, Université de Lausanne) in Lausanne, Switzerland was founded in 1537 as a school of Protestant theology, before being made a university in 1890. The university is the second oldest in Switzer ...
(1958–59), finishing at
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, where he studied under
Meyer Schapiro Meyer Schapiro (23 September 1904 – 3 March 1996) was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for developing new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art. An expert on earl ...
. Sharp wrote his graduate thesis on kinetic art.


Solo exhibitions

Beginning in 1969, Sharp had more than twenty solo exhibitions at museums, and art galleries such as:
Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
; the University Art Museum,
Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
; The Museum of Conceptual Art,
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, 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 List of Ca ...
; CAYA,
Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
,
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
; the
University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...
; the
Ontario College of Art Ontario College of Art & Design University, commonly known as OCAD University or OCAD, is a public art university located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The university's main campus is spread throughout several buildings and facilities within do ...
,
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
; the
University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, ...
,
Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...
; the
Vancouver Art Gallery The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is an art museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The museum occupies a adjacent to Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Franc ...
, and Pumps Gallery,
Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
. His work has also been seen in many group shows in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
,
Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
,
Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and
Asia Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
. In February 1969, at the invitation of
Hans Haacke Hans Haacke (born August 12, 1936) is a Germany, German-born artist who lives and works in New York City. Haacke is considered a "leading exponent" of Institutional Critique. Early life Haacke was born in Cologne, Germany. He studied at the ''S ...
, he presented a three-part video installation, “Earthscopes,” at
Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...
, which included a video catalogue of the historic “
Earth Art Land art, variously known as Earth art, environmental art, and Earthworks, is an art movement that emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, largely associated with Great Britain and the United StatesArt in the modern era: A guide to styles, schools, & mov ...
” exhibition that he curated at the Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art at
Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
. In March 1969, Sharp created “Einstein’s Eye,” a closed-circuit b/w video sculpture exhibited at the Richard L. Feigen Gallery in New York City.


Career

Sharp began his media work in 1967 by shooting films in 8mm,
Super 8mm Super 8 mm film is a motion-picture film format released in 1965 by Eastman Kodak as an improvement over the older "Double" or "Regular" 8 mm home movie format. The film is nominally 8 mm wide, the same as older formatted 8& ...
, and 16mm including “Earth,” (1968, Collection: Museum of Fine Arts,
Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
) and “Place & Process,” (1969, Collection:
MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...
, New York). After these films, he produced a body of video works in 1/2, 3/4 and 1-inch tape. These works included video sculpture, video installations, “Videoviews,” (1970–1974), Video performances (1973–1977), cable television programs (1985–1986), and broadcast TV programs (2001–2008). In 1970 Sharp's film “Place and Process” was included in
MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...
’s “INFORMATION” exhibition curated by Kynaston McShine. Also in 1970, Sharp curated “Body Works,” an exhibition of
Video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...
with works by
Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an influential American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational p ...
,
Bruce Nauman Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941) is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico. Life and work ...
,
Terry Fox Terrance Stanley Fox (July 28, 1958 June 28, 1981) was a Canadian athlete, humanitarian, and cancer research activist. In 1980, with one leg having been amputated due to cancer, he embarked on an east-to-west cross-Canada run to raise money ...
,
Keith Sonnier Keith Sonnier (July 31, 1941 – July 18, 2020) was a postminimalist sculptor, performance artist, video and light artist. Sonnier was one of the first artists to use light in sculpture in the 1960s. With his use of neon in combination with epheme ...
,
Dennis Oppenheim Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American conceptual artist, performance artist, earth artist, sculptor and photographer. Dennis Oppenheim's early artistic practice is an epistemological questioning about the natu ...
and William Wegman at Tom Marioni's Museum of Conceptual Art,
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, 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 List of Ca ...
,
California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...
. In 1971, Sharp created ''Points of View: A Taped Conversation with Four Painters,'' for
Arts Magazine ''Arts Magazine'' was a prominent monthly magazine devoted to fine art. It was established in 1926 and last published in 1992. History Early years Launched in 1926 and originally titled ''The Art Digest,'' it was printed semi-monthly from Octobe ...
, a live interview with painters:
Ronnie Landfield Ronnie Landfield (born January 9, 1947) is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction (related to Postminimalism, Color Field painting, an ...
,
Brice Marden Brice Marden (born October 15, 1938) is an American artist generally described as Minimalist, although his work may be hard to categorize. He lives and works in New York City; Tivoli, New York; Hydra, Greece; and Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania. Lif ...
,
Larry Poons Lawrence M. "Larry" Poons (born October 1, 1937) is an American abstract painter. Poons was born in Tokyo, Japan, and studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent of becoming a professional musician. After ...
, and John Walker. Between 1970 and 1972, Sharp began work the on the “Videoviews”, a series of dialogues with artists using one of the first
Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
3400 Porta-Pac video recording systems at San Jose State TV studios. The series consists of Sharp's dialogues with
Bruce Nauman Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941) is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico. Life and work ...
(1970),
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
(1972), Vito Acconci (1973),
Chris Burden Christopher Lee Burden (April 11, 1946 – May 10, 2015) was an American artist working in performance, sculpture and installation art. Burden became known in the 1970s for his performance art works, including ''Shoot'' (1971), where he arranged ...
(1973),
Lowell Darling Lowell Darling is an American conceptual artist most notable for a series of performances in the 1970s that included nailing cities to the earth, conducting "urban acupuncture" by placing oversize needles in the ground, and stitching up the San A ...
(1974), and Dennis Oppenheim (1974). Later, while working with ARTENGINE, N.Y., Sharp produced a series of 30-minute documentary programs on Dennis Oppenheim (2001), Keith Sonnier (2002),
Earle Brown Earle Brown (December 26, 1926 – July 2, 2002) was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems. Brown was the creator of "open form," a style of musical construction that has influenced many composers since ...
(2002), and
Morton Subotnick Morton Subotnick (born April 14, 1933) is an American composer of electronic music, best known for his 1967 composition '' Silver Apples of the Moon'', the first electronic work commissioned by a record company, Nonesuch. He was one of the foun ...
(2003). In 1976, under an NEA grant to Center for New Art Activities, Inc., he co-produced with Liza Béar ''Five Video Pioneers: Vito Acconci,
Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, urban, and architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material quality and exploration o ...
, Willoughby Sharp, Keith Sonnier, William Wegman'' (Collection:
MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...
, N.Y.). That year, he also represented the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
in the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
. Shortly afterward, Sharp began production on a series of international, multi-casting, pre-Internet projects which simultaneously interlaced information from
computers A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These programs ...
,
telefax Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (the latter short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer o ...
, In September 1977, he participated in Send/Receive Satellite Network: Phase II, co-produced and directed by Keith Sonnier and Liza Béar in collaboration with a group of
San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, 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 List of Ca ...
and New York artists; this was the first trans-continental interactive
satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioisotope ...
work made by artists. His participation in Send/Receive in part led to Sharp's current preoccupation with global collaborative work through a series of interactive telecommunications and streaming transmissions. This ongoing series of projects honors the accomplishments of electrical geniuses
Guglielmo Marconi Guglielmo Giovanni Maria Marconi, 1st Marquis of Marconi (; 25 April 187420 July 1937) was an Italians, Italian inventor and electrical engineering, electrical engineer, known for his creation of a practical radio wave-based Wireless telegrap ...
(1981),
Heinrich Hertz Heinrich Rudolf Hertz ( ; ; 22 February 1857 – 1 January 1894) was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves predicted by James Clerk Maxwell's Maxwell's equations, equations of electrom ...
(1986) and
Nikola Tesla Nikola Tesla ( ; ,"Tesla"
''
Serkan Ozkaya (conceptual artist) has been published under the title ''Have You Ever Done Anything Right?'' in English and Spanish, by Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien and Smart Art Press. Sharp's video and film works are in the collections of the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
New York; the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
;
ZKM The ZKM , Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (until March 2016: ZKM Center for Art and Media Technology), a cultural institution, was founded in 1989. and since 1997 is located in a listed industrial building in Karlsruhe, Germany, a former muni ...
(Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie) in
Karlsruhe Karlsruhe ( , , ; South Franconian: ''Kallsruh'') is the third-largest city of the German state (''Land'') of Baden-Württemberg after its capital of Stuttgart and Mannheim, and the 22nd-largest city in the nation, with 308,436 inhabitants. ...
,
Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
; The Collection of the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
,
Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400  ...
,
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...
; The Museum of Fine Arts; the
Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...
; the
National Art Gallery List of national galleries is a list of national art galleries. {{tocright Africa *Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa *National Art Gallery of Namibia, Windhoek, Namibia The Americas *Galería Nacional, San Juan, Puerto ...
in
Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
; The Western Front in
Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
and in private collections worldwide.


Collaboration with Joseph Beuys

In 1958, Sharp met Joseph Beuys in Düsseldorf and maintained a close, collaborative relationship until Beuys' death in 1986. Sharp was influential in bringing Beuys’ work to the attention of the American art world. Starting with an ''
Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...
'' interview (December, 1969), Beuys was also featured in the first issue of ''Avalanche'' magazine (1970). In 1972, Sharp produced th
''Beuys Videoview''
which constituted Beuys’ first solo show at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc., N.Y. He also produced ''Public Dialogue'' in which Beuys performed as part of the ''Videoperformance'' exhibition Sharp curated din 1974. In 1974, at Beuys’ request, Sharp videotaped ''I Like America, America Likes Me'', his performance at the Rene Block Gallery, New York City, which has been released as ''America'' (1974–2003). In 1979, Beuys invited Sharp to curate the film/video sections of his retrospective at the
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
and while Beuys was in New York, Sharp suggested he visit and support the turmoil around
The Real Estate Show The Real Estate Show was a squatted exhibition by New York artists' group Colab, on the subject of landlord speculation in real estate held on New Year's Day (January 1, 1980) in a vacant city-owned building at 123 Delancey Street in the Lower Eas ...
and even took Beuys to the
Mudd Club The Mudd Club was a nightclub located at 77 White Street in the TriBeCa neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It operated from 1978 to 1983 as a venue for underground music and counterculture events. It was opened by Steve Maas, Die ...
one night.


Teaching career

Sharp taught on the faculties of the
School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...
, Humanities and Science Department (1984–1988); the
University of Rhode Island The University of Rhode Island (URI) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Kingston, Rhode Island, United States. It is the flagship public research as well as the land-grant university of the state of Rhode Island ...
, Kingston, where he was also the director of the Fine Arts Center (1988–1990); and the
New School University The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...
,
Parsons The New School for Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhat ...
, Graduate Faculty, Digital Design Department, N.Y. (2000–2003).


Curatorial work

Beginning in 1964, Sharp curated numerous exhibitions, including: * 1964 POP ART: AN ART HISTORICAL APPROACH, Columbia University, NY. No Catalogue. * 1964 ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld, Germany. Catalogue. * 1966 GUNTHER UECKER, Alfred Schmela Gallery, Düsseldorf, Germany. Catalogue. * 1966 GUNTHER UECKER, Howard Wise Gallery, NY. Catalogue. * 1966 KINETIC AND PROGRAMMED ART, November 25 – December 4, 1966.
Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...
, Museum of Art, Providence. Brochure. * 1967 SLOW-MOTION, Rutgers University, NJ. Catalogue. * 1967 LIGHT–MOTION-SPACE, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN. and the Milwaukee Art Center, Milwaukee, WI. Catalogue. * 1967 LUMINISM, The Artists Club, NY. Catalogue. * 1968–1969 AIR ART, Arts Council, YM/YWHA, Philadelphia, PA; traveled to: Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH; Lakeview Center for the Arts and Sciences, Peoria, Illinois; University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley, CA; Lamont Gallery, Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, NH; Edmonton Art Gallery, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Catalogue. * 1968 KINETICISM: SYSTEMS SCULPTURE IN ENVIRONMENTAL SITUATIONS (Official Olympic Games Exhibition), University Museum of Arts and Science, Mexico City, Mexico. Catalogue. * 1969 EARTH ART, Andrew Dickson White Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. Catalogue. * 1969 PLACE & PROCESS, The Edmonton Art Gallery, Alberta, Canada. No catalogue. * 1970 BODY WORKS an exhibition of
Video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...
presented at
Tom Marioni Tom Marioni (born 1937, Cincinnati, Ohio, United States) is an American artist and educator, known for his conceptual artwork. Marioni was active in the emergence of Conceptual Art movement in the 1960s. He founded the Museum of Conceptual Art ( ...
's Museum of Conceptual Art, San Francisco, California. * 1970 THIS IS YOUR ROOF exhibition is presented at the international art festival held in Pamplona, Spain. * 1971 PIER 18, a site/non-site exhibition on an abandoned Pier on Manhattan's West Side. * 1971
Vito Acconci Vito Acconci (, ; January 24, 1940 – April 27, 2017) was an influential American performance, video and installation artist, whose diverse practice eventually included sculpture, architectural design, and landscape design. His foundational p ...
, Claim, 93 Grand Street, NY. Performance. * 1971 William Beckley, 93 Grand Street. Performance * 1971
Terry Fox Terrance Stanley Fox (July 28, 1958 June 28, 1981) was a Canadian athlete, humanitarian, and cancer research activist. In 1980, with one leg having been amputated due to cancer, he embarked on an east-to-west cross-Canada run to raise money ...
, Yeast, 93 Grand Street, NY. Videotaped performance. * 1973 JOSEPH BEUYS, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, Inc., NY. Beuys’ first show in the U.S. No catalogue. * 1973 AVALANCHE DIE ENTWICKLUNG EINER AVANTGARDE-ZEITSCHRIFT, Cologne Kunstverein; traveled to: Hanover Kunstverein; Munster Kunstverein; Frankfurt Kunstverein. No catalogue. * 1974 VIDEOPERFORMANCE, 112 Greene Street, Gallery, NY. Catalogue: ''Avalanche'' magazine Issue Number 9. * 1979–1980
Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
, Guggenheim Retrospective, curated the film/video section. Catalogue. * 1984
Joseph Nechvatal Joseph Nechvatal (born January 15, 1951) is an American post-conceptual digital artist and Aesthetics, art theoretician who creates computer-assisted paintings and computer animations, often using custom-created computer viruses. Life and work ...
, Machine Language Book by Willoughby Sharp, 74 pages * 1988–1991 WILLOUGHBY SHARP GALLERY. * 1988
Lawrence Weiner Lawrence Charles Weiner (February 10, 1942December 2, 2021) was an American conceptual artist. He was one of the central figures in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s. His work often took the form of typographic texts, a form of word a ...
, Fine Arts Center, University of Rhode Island, Kingston Rhode Island. No catalogue. * 1989
Joan Jonas Joan Jonas (born July 13, 1936) is an American visual artist and a pioneer of video and performance art, and one of the most important artists to emerge in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Adrian Piper Adrian Margaret Smith Piper (born September 20, 1948) is an American conceptual artist and Kantian philosopher. Her work addresses how and why those involved in more than one discipline may experience professional ostracism, otherness, racial ...
, Fine Arts Center, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island. No catalogue. * 2003 POLARITIES, The Lobby Gallery, 1155 Avenue of the Americas, NY. Brochure. *DAAD
Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
grant with Pamela Seymour Smith, (2006) *Emily Harvey Foundation artists-in-residence grant with Pamela Seymour Smith (2006) *
ACE award The CableACE Award (earlier known as the ACE Awards; ACE was an acronym for "Award for Cable Excellence") is a defunct award that was given by what was then the National Cable Television Association from 1978 to 1997 to honor excellence in Ame ...
(1986) *Department of Communications,
Canadian Government The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown-in-C ...
(1981) *Canada Council, Explorations Department, (1981) *National Endowment for the Arts (1976–1978, 1980–1981) *
New York State Council on the Arts The New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) is an arts council serving the U.S. state of New York. It was established in 1960 through a bill introduced in the New York State Legislature by New York State Senator MacNeil Mitchell (1905–1996), ...
(1975–1977, 1979, 1985) *
Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Carneg ...
individual artists grant (1971)


Body of work

*Joseph Beuys' America (1974–2003) 12 min *
Earle Brown Earle Brown (December 26, 1926 – July 2, 2002) was an American composer who established his own formal and notational systems. Brown was the creator of "open form," a style of musical construction that has influenced many composers since ...
By Artengine, New York (2002) 28 min *Dennis Oppenheim By Artengine, New York (2001) 28 min *Keith Sonnier By Artengine, New York (2002) 28 min *Who Killed
Heinrich Hertz Heinrich Rudolf Hertz ( ; ; 22 February 1857 – 1 January 1894) was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves predicted by James Clerk Maxwell's Maxwell's equations, equations of electrom ...
? (1986–1987) 20 min *Willoughby Sharp's Downtown New York (1986, in collaboration with
Timothy Binkley Timothy Binkley (born Timothy Glenn Binkley on September 14, 1943, in Baltimore, MD), is an American philosopher, artist, and teacher, known for his radical writings about conceptual art and aesthetics, as well as several essays that help de ...
, George M. Chaikin, Gretta Sarfaty and
Ira Schneider Ira Schneider (1939 – August 17, 2022)Happe, Uli (2004). Ira Schneider: If Something Interested Me I Filmed It'. YouTube. was an American video artist. He has been living and working in Berlin since 1993 until his return to the US in 2021. __TOC ...
) 58 min *Art And Telecommunications (1983) 60 min *The Space Shuttle Is A Robot (1983) 20 min *Willoughby Sharp's Beta 1: DBS (1982) 20 min *Five Video Pioneers: Acconci, Serra, Sharp, Sonnier & Wegman (1977) 30 min *Two-Way Demo(1977) 20 min *Willoughby Sharp Videoviews Chris Burden (1975) 27:45 min *Art Stars in Hollywood: The DeccaDance (with Chip Lord and Megan Williams) (1974) 60 min *Art Stars Interviews (with Chip Lord and Megan Williams) (1974) 60 min *Joseph Beuys' Public Dialogue (1974) 120 min *Willoughby Sharp's Videoperformances (1973–1974) 58 min *Chris Burden Videoview (1973) 30 min
Joseph Beuys Videoview
(1973) 30 min
Vito Acconci Videoview
(1973) 30 min


References


External links


Willoughby In His Own Words: A Memorial Tributeartnet, Charlie Finch, ''Remembering Willoughby''
* ttp://www.eai.org/artistTitles.htm?id=301 Selected video works distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix, Inc., New Yorkbr>''Willoughby Sharp Videoviews Vito Acconci'' (1973) UbuWeb Film & VideoAvalanche Magazine Index
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sharp, Willoughby 1936 births 2008 deaths Mass media theorists American art curators American magazine founders American conceptual artists University of Rhode Island faculty Land artists