Martin Maloney / Spending the sperm splitting the sluice

“(...) the man did not refrain from criticizing the art establishment and his fellow artists, and even used criticism explicitly as the starting point for a number of postcard sized ”language pieces” (Designation Deposits” and ”Reject Deposits” , 1967-2001). This unruly and polemical art practice, coupled with his radical views and his particular temperament, isolated the artist more and more from the artistic context. By the time Martin Maloney, at the age of 65, died in Antwerp, he was materially impoverished and maintained only sporadic contacts with the art world. Maloney’s stubborn attitude obviously had other consequences too: because of his own (largely) chosen isolation, he cut himself off from the various channels that art history constructs: gallerists, collectors, critics ,curators ,conservators, art historians, fellow artists. Moreover, he himself destroyed much of his own work. All this results in his absence from the major, canonizing, publications since the seventies devoted to conceptual art .” (https://ftn-blog.com/2019/09/13/martin-maloney/)