Legendary Bay Area conceptual artist Tom Marioni, whose work is featured in To Exalt the Ephemeral, has been experimenting at the boundaries of art for fifty years. He introduces his book Social Art, an updated consideration of his ongoing and best-known work, the performance installation The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art, first performed at the Oakland Museum of California Art in 1970. That same year, Marioni opened the Museum of Conceptual Art in San Francisco, arguably the nation’s first alternative art space.