"You can't make art by making art" has been a guiding principle in the work of David Ireland (1930-2009), one of California's most important and critically acclaimed artists working in the challenging arena of conceptual and installation art. In his lifetime, David Ireland has produced a remarkable series of architectural transformations, installations, objects, and drawings that consistently challenge viewers' everyday distinctions between art and non-art. A self-described "post-discipline" artist guided by Zen thought and postmodern aesthetics, Ireland moves fluidly from making small drawings to creating sculptures as large as houses. David Ireland's work has been presented in more than 40 solo exhibitions, at venues including the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; and the Museum of Modern Art and the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York. Ireland is widely admired for installations and sculptures made with humble materials that he accumulated over time.
His best known work of art is his house at 500 Capp Street, a ramshackle Victorian in San Francisco's Mission district that he spent more than 30 years transforming. The house and its furnishings showcase Ireland's unique use of materials and wonderfully rich sense of humor, following the basic principle that any object or activity can be art if it is experienced as such.