"Time is Now" Paul Thek in the 1960s

Although recent years have seen an increase in scholarly attention to the work of American artist Paul Thek (1933-1988), these efforts remain concentrated on a limited number of his works. In particular European scholars have focused on his installations from the early to mid 1970s, while American scholars remain fixated on his participation in the New York art scene of the 1960s and his "meat pieces" from that period. By taking the latter as a starting point I analyze themes that run throughout Thek's work from the middle to late 1960s, with three distinct series or works as case studies. This period is a critical junction in Thek's career as he began to experiment with new material and theoretical vantage points. Each chapter also considers to various degrees, Thek's thematic interest in time in relation to various contemporary genres including Pop, Minimalism, Post-Minimalism, Performance, and others.