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Scholars and artists have long been interested in socially engaged artworks, particularly those involving civil disobedience. But what of the opposite approach? What of radical adherence? In the 1970s, California-based artist Lowell Darling realized a series of creative endeavors exploiting uncivil obedience, characterized by a conspicuous and hyperbolic compliance with established laws, rules, and mandates. Following the disallowance of proposed deductions to his 1969 federal income tax return, Darling—by way of projects such as the fictional Fat City School of Finds Arts—deconstructed the so-called hobby loss rule of the U.S. Tax Code by rigorously and ironically fulfilling those factors said to indicate a profit-seeking intent. In 1978, Darling mined the intricacies of electioneering norms and campaign finance by staging an insincere run for governor of California. In these projects, Darling mobilized a kind of legal medium for creative expression, manifesting a mode of art-making that departed from expectations about how art and law might interact and intersect within art practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within a Cold War climate of paranoia regarding secret identities and communist plots, California-based artist George Herms realized artworks attributed to fictional artist-authors: Eric Hammerscoffer, Paul Mistrie, Iris Firewater, Sigmund Fletcher, Astropoet Moonstone, and Tarzan Feathers. The lives of these imaginary artists were narrated in outlandish biographies, and their artworks were displayed in museum and gallery exhibitions. Rather than simply presenting work under a different name (a pseudonym), Herms deployed the literary technique of heteronymy—which is both a tool (a heteronym) and a conceptual strategy. Herms’s heteronymous practice comprised presenting work by distinct personae, each of whom differed from the others in terms of aesthetic style, philosophy, personality, and life story. By advertising the fictional status of the attributed artists, and doing so alongside documentation of their existence, Herms galvanized the problematic space connecting a named artist-author to his/her/their artwork. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]