Michael Bidlo (born 20 October 1953) is an American conceptual artist who employs painting, sculpture, drawing, performance, and other forms of "social sculpture." Early life and education Bidlo was born in Chicago, Illinois and studied at the University of Illinois (BA,1973), Southern Illinois University Carbondale (MFA,1975), and at Teachers College at Columbia University in New York, (MA,1978). Career Early years In 1980 shortly after moving to New York City from Chicago, Bidlo participated in Colab's Times Square Show and in 1982 Bidlo was awarded a studio at the PS1 Museum where he staged Jack the Dripper at Peg's Place, an installation rendering his vision of Peggy Guggenheim's Beekman Place townhouse, with the fireplace famously used by Pollock as a pissoir. Bidlo's event was an act of homage and defiance and for the next few years he immersed himself in discovering how to paint like Pollock, then executing his series to scale of "NOT Pollock" drip paintings. The Pier 34 project was co-organized by Bidlo and David Wojnarowicz and lasted from 1983 to 1984 until it was closed by the police. The pier was located in the abandoned Ward Line shipping terminal located at the foot of Canal Street. Bidlo and Wojnarowicz issued a statement and an invitation spread through art channels including Lucy Lippard for artists to come and work in the pier building. Masterpieces Series In 1983 Bidlo painted his version of Pablo Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" in the PS1 studio. This painting was subsequently shown in "Picasso's Women: 1901–1971" at Leo Castelli Gallery, the "Masterpieces" exhibition at Bruno Bischofberger Gallery, and in 2015 at the Grand Palais in Paris. This painting was the beginning of Bidlo's reinventions and recreations of iconic works in the history of modernist masters. Series from 1985 to 1998 include: "NOT Andy Warhol's Factory", a reinvention of "The Factory" for one afternoon in Bidlo's attic studio. "NOT Franz Kline and NOT Man Ray", which included a series after Franz Kline's seminal black and white abstractions, to scale, and a re-creation of Man Ray's masterpiece, "A l'Heure de l'observatoire: Les amoureux". "NOT Guernica and NOT Klein", in 1985, with a full-scale version of Picasso's "Guernica" in Los Angeles at the Larry Gagosian Gallery, and a re-creation of Yves Klein's, "Anthropométries de l'époque bleue" where he wore a tuxedo and white gloves as Klein had done, directing naked women to make prints with their bodies on