The American sculptor and activist BARTON LIDICE BENEŠ died on this date (b. 1942). Beneš made work that was exhibited internationally. His father, the son of Czech immigrants gave him his middle name in memory of Lidice, the Czech town destroyed by the Nazis that year. He grew up in Queens with Czech-born grandparents, who instilled in him a dedication to the Roman Catholic traditions of reliquaries and memorials to the dead. He studied at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York and Beaux-Arts, Avignon, France.

Barton Beneš made art, somewhat in the style of Joseph Cornell, which incorporated shadow boxes filled with bits and pieces that revealed the myths and ironies of life. The fragments in Beneš’ work often involved famous people and events, as do the sixteen collaged bits in this print, from a piece of Elizabeth Taylor’s shoe to a crumb from the wedding cake of the Prince of Wales. His travelling exhibition series about AIDS, “Lethal Weapons,” was the focus of an independent documentary film released in 1997. Among the museums that have acquired his works are the Chicago Art Institute, the National Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Australia, and most importantly the North Dakota Museum of Art.

Gallery owners were often unwilling to show his AIDS sculptures because they incorporated the remains of friends lost to the illness.

One work, “Lethal Weapons” consisted of 30 vessels like a water pistol, an atomizer and hollow darts, all filled with the artist’s or other people’s HIV-infected blood. Another work, “Brenda,” was a wall relief carpeted with red AIDS-awareness ribbons and slathered with a coat of gray paste made from the cremated remains of a woman who had died of AIDS. “I absolutely hate those [AIDS] ribbons,” he said, contending that wearing them did nothing more than assuage people’s consciences.

Although galleries and museums refused to show this work, they were displayed without incident at the North Dakota Museum of Art in 1993. Beneš did not forget the courage and commitment to art of this prairie institution. When he died he left instructions to be cremated and have his remains placed in a pillowcase on his bed. The bed was the central part Beneš last completed and most personal work, his 850-square-foot home in Greenwich Village containing thousands of objects including masks and religious relics and the mementoes and remains of his loved ones. This enormous piece with its thousands of contents will be moved to Grand Forks, North Dakota, where they will be exhibited in a replica of the apartment.