Perfect is the Question, curated by Brandy Carstens, opens on September 16 at OG Gallery. The group exhibition features the works of 21 artists and is inspired by James Lee Byars’ radical approach—placing the question above the answer. It investigates the boundaries between presence and absence, the pursuit of perfection, and the very nature of experience.
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Perfect Is the Question¹ explores the work and thinking of the late James Lee Byars. Byars created something intangible. Like the great poems, his language is not of concrete objects but of experience. Thomas McEllivey describes:

From 1969 until 1985 or 1990—when Byars rarely made any concrete object-works; the very idea made him literally shudder. […] The point was that any formed object would be an answer.²

Throughout Perfect Is the Question, performances of Your Presence is the Best Work / A Presence is the Best Work (1992) aim to summon Byars. This was first performed at the main gate of the 1993 Venice Biennale opening day, as recounted here by his friend Luca Muscarà.

I recall a performance on the opening day of the 1993 Venice Biennale. Standing at the main gate, all dressed in gold, with his hat on and blindfolded, there he was, J.L.B., ritually handing out to each visitor an ultra-thin paper gold coin, where in ultra-minuscule size he had written “your presence is the best work.” It was the first artwork one would encounter visiting the Biennale, even more significant since that year he had not been invited.³

One year earlier, in his review of Byars’ 1992 exhibition at Mary Boone, Donald Kuspit wrote:

The gallery has become a temple. Presence is regenerated through absence, or rather, absence has itself become presence: the sheer, raw, made presence of Nothing, with Art residing in the total space, the absolutized emptiness.⁴

Documenting with precision, a steadfast meditation on existence—wonder, loss, impermanence, hope, devastation of hope: perfection—failure of perfection—death. Byars’ brand of mysticism conjures the human experience somewhere within our wishes and reality, expectations, and demolitions. Here is the alchemy for being alive: the fullness of it and the failure of it.

Brandy Carstens

The exhibition will be on view from September 16 to October 25, Tuesday to Saturday, 11:00 AM to 6:00 PM.

Your Presence is the Best Work / A Presence is the Best Work the performance of James Lee Byars will start at 7:00 PM on Tuesday the 16th and at 4:00 PM on Wednesday the 17th.
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¹ “James Lee Byars. Perfect Is the Question,” Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, 10 May – 1 Sept. 2024.