In a 1979 exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, American conceptual artist Michael Asher, known for his site-specific work that investigates the relationship between a piece of art and its place of display, relocated a 20th-century bronze cast of Jean-Antoine Houdon’s famous marble George Washington (1785–91) from the museum’s front steps to an interior gallery. In placing the work in a new context, Asher sought to make the viewer aware of usually invisible institutional practices–the categorisation of works of art, methods of installation, and the criteria for assigning aesthetic value.