assembly required yet not allowed

Piles of sculpture elements that could be assembled to make a sculpture

Tables or walls of painting bits, you could assemble them to make a painting

In both cases it’s important that no one ever assembles the artwork. To even begin to do so would be to extinguish the work. The death of the artwork would begin with the participation of the viewer.

This in a funny way establishes an impermeable boundary between the human stations of artist and viewer, in defiant contradiction of the popular dictum that everything is art and everyone is an artist.