John Baldessari’s art is cheerfully laconic. It strikes this special tone, broadcast as if on its own frequency, from its beginnings until the present day. Is there a method to it? And, if so, what does it consist of? The simpler answer points to an ever-surprising change in perspective that Baldessari offers his viewers. A slightly shifted view of art, the world, and its image…
But there is more: a daring intellectual feat in his approach, precisely because it includes acting stupid. Baldessari assumes a calculated risk that he will not be understood fully, but with the aim of deriving intellectual profit from that. — Bice Curiger*
*Bice Curiger, “Doubly Detached, Doubly Immersed,” in John Baldessari: Pure Beauty (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2009).
John Baldessari was born in National City, California, in 1931 and died on January 2, 2020 at home in Venice Beach.
John Baldessari, from top: Goya Series: And, 1997, courtesy and © the Museum of Modern Art, New York, SCALA/Art Resource, New York; artist unknown [John Baldessari], late 1960s, reproduced in David Antin’s article “John Baldessari,” Studio International, July–August, 1970; Beach Scene/Nuns/Nurse (With Choices), 1991, courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery; Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line {Best of Thirty-Six Attempts) (detail), 1973, courtesy and © the estate of the artist, Giampaolo Prearo Editore S.r.L.,Galleria Toselli, Milan, and the Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; The Overlap Series: Jogger (with Cosmic Event), 2000–2001; Wrong, 1966–1968, courtesy of Museum Associates, LACMA and Marian Goodman Gallery; Eight Soups: Corn Soup, 2012, (borrowed an image from Henri Matisse, Goldfish and Sculpture, 1912), courtesy of Gemini G.E.L.; Beethoven’s Trumpet , photograph by Andreu Dalmau; Three Red Paintings, 1988, photograph courtesy and © Douglas M. Parker; Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell, 1966–1968, courtesy of the Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica; Various Shadows, 1984, courtesy of Jim Tananbaum/Prospect Ventures. Images courtesy and © the estate of John Baldessari and Marian Goodman Gallery.
