On opening night of James Lee Byars’ 1978 solo show at the Kunsthalle Bern, the museum was hushed and abandoned; a note on the front door read, “We are at the Commerce.” No attendees were expected—Byars’ work was considered too eccentric—so the artist and his colleagues decamped to a nearby restaurant. This anecdote inspired the Réunion happening, for which Byars’ exhibition was reinstalled and the restaurant was re-created.
A throwback to a late-blooming art legend.
