Don Celender papers

Don Celender, who was born in Pittsburgh in 1931, earned a bachelor of fine art degree from Carnegie Mellon University in 1956 and a Ph.D. in art history from the University of Pittsburgh in 1963. After working briefly in the department of education at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, he taught at Macalester College in St. Paul for 40 years until he was diagnosed with cancer in January of 2005.

In 1969, with Conceptual Art gaining steam, Mr. Celender began a series of letter-writing campaigns that spoofed the movement while spreading its ideas and gathering interesting information. With his Cultural Art Movement he sent outlandish proposals to 25 museum directors, suggesting for example that Sherman Lee, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art, drop by parachute, 1,000 works of Asian art from the museum's collection, one at a time, onto the state of Alabama. Mr. Lee replied that since art was in the mind of the beholder, he had "mentally performed" Mr. Celender's idea.

In subsequent works, Mr. Celender surveyed film directors, prison wardens, labor leaderss, religious figures, travel agents, celebrities and famous chefs about their art preferences. He also produced a series of baseball cards using artists' faces.

Mr. Celender's work was included in many books and exhibitions surveying Conceptual Art. On a nearly annual basis, he tacked the responses to his surveys to the walls of Mr. Karp's gallery, mounting 29 exhibitions from 1970 to 2004.

Celender passed on March 3rd, 2005, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from cancer at the age of 73.

(taken from the New York Times obituary for Celender)