Tom Marioni's 1970 exhibition, The Art of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art, was a forerunner of a type of contemporary Relational Aesthetics practices that involve eating, drinking and other social activities. In this memoir, Marioni demystifies and defines conceptual art and answers the question, "What is art for?" Thomas McEvilley, in the introduction, enlarges the historic context, comparing early Conceptual art activities in New York to the work of California artists like Marioni and John Baldessari, who embraced directness and humor.
