Art Disposal Service
by Dave Hampton
The Art Disposal Service, Los Angeles, was founded in the late 1960s by John Manno, a sculptor from New York City who started to park a van boldly lettered with the words "Art Disposal Service" in front of chic La Cienega galleries during then-popular nighttime "artwalks." The presence of his van and the business it advertised was enough to provoke a mix of confusion and alarm at such openings.
Drawn to the performative potential of this idea, Bob Matheny approached Manno and on July 3rd, 1969, they signed a contract to establish a San Diego franchise of the operation with Matheny as manager.
The new San Diego Art Disposal Service issued its first press release, and a notice regarding the service appeared in the Evening Tribune newspaper. On October 13th, 1969, John Manno wrote to Matheny saying, "I think your press release is neat." He also mentioned the possibility of obtaining foundation monies ("a Guggenheim?") to finance more ambitious actions.
In December 1969 Matheny's new Art Disposal Service announced that "certain holiday disposal rites" would be held at the Otay dump on December 18th 1969. The happening was conducted with help from Matheny's Southwestern College students (who provided some of the art to be turned into landfill) and drew several outraged citizens in protest.
In support of the protesters, one of the students lay down in the path of an advancing bulldozer. According to Matheny, his art department colleague John Clark got into the disposal spirit by making stickers to label garbage cans with identifying them as Art Pollution Control Devices.
With this reevaluation of art, its meaning and value in the atmosphere, it is no coincidence that John Baldessari's notorious "Cremation Project," took place almost exactly one year after the Art Disposal Service event at the Otay dump, and July 24, 1970, he incinerated every painting that he had on hand made between May 1953-March 1966 at Cypress View Mausoleum and Crematory.
