Eugenia P. Butler, 61, conceptual artist toyed with perception, truth
Eugenia P. Butler, a formative figure in conceptual art who often incorporated the written or spoken word in spare exhibits that challenged people to explore how they perceive reality, has died. She was 61.
Butler died March 29 of a brain hemorrhage atSanta Rosa Memorial Hospital in Santa Rosa, Calif., said her daughter Corazon del Sol. Butler, a longtime Los Angeles resident, moved to the Sonoma Valley four years ago to live near her only child.
"Eugenia always was an explorer. . . . She was not only a visual artist, but she was interested in the intersection of visual arts and spoken ideas," said David Rodes, director emeritus of the UCLA Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at the Armand Hammer Museum in Westwood.
Her early art was often described as "invisible sculpture." Many pieces consisted of nothing but short, descriptive wall labels meant to provoke thought, such as "Negative Space Hole" (1967) or "A Congruent Reality" (1969).
"When you read Butler's phrases you simply feel, see and think differently in the space," wrote Christopher Miles in Artforum International magazine in 2003.
A 35-year survey of her work was staged in 2003 in Los Angeles at the Otis College of Art and Design. Just inside the gallery, she had remade "Electric Cord Piece" (1967). Physics and electricity were a constant in her works, but no electricity flowed through the cord that snaked across the floor and looped back to the same wall, where it was plugged in another outlet.
"It's a sculpture because of what it does inside your head," David Pagel wrote for The Times in a review of the 2003 show.
Later works, dating from 1988, showed "greater interest in the palpable materiality of art objects," Pagel observed. As her drawings increased in scale, they relied less on text, and color became an important part of her abstracts.
One sculpture-like work -- a 6-foot beach ball made of clear plastic -- illustrated her ability to surprise. Called "My Last Museum Piece" (2003), its interior was coated with honey to nourish the few thousand flies within.
Such art hits "you in the gut, and leaves you scratching your head," Miles wrote, "inviting a whole range of associations."
Provoking discussion was a hallmark of her work.
