John Baldessari
Encyclopedia
John Anthony Baldessari (born June 17, 1931, National City, California
) is an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lives and works in Santa Monica
and Venice, California
Initially a painter, Baldessari began to incorporate texts and photography into his canvases in the mid 1960s. He has created thousands of works that demonstrate—and, in many cases, combine—the narrative potential of images and the associative power of language
within the boundaries of the work of art. His art has been featured in more than 200 solo exhibitions in the U.S.
and Europe. His work has had a huge influence on Cindy Sherman
, David Salle
, and Barbara Kruger
among others.
, Jack Goldstein
, James Welling
, Barbara Bloom
, Matt Mullican
, and Troy Brauntuch
. He quit teaching at CalArts in 1986, moving on to teach at UCLA, which he continued until 2008.
paintings that were empty but for painted statements derived from contemporary art theory. An early attempt of Baldessari's included the hand-painted phrase "Suppose it is true after all? WHAT THEN?" on a heavily worked painted surface. However, this proved personally disappointing because the form and method conflicted with the objective use of language that he preferred to employ. Baldessari decided the solution was to remove his own hand from the construction of the image and to employ a commercial, lifeless style so that the text would impact the viewer without distractions. The words were then physically lettered by sign painters, in an unornamented black font
. The first of this series presented the ironic statement "A TWO-DIMENSIONAL SURFACE WITHOUT ANY ARTICULATION IS A DEAD EXPERIENCE." (1967)
Another work, Painting for Kubler, 1967–68, presented the viewer theoretical instructions on how to view it and on the importance of context and continuity with previous works. This work referenced art historian George Kubler
's seminal book, The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
. The seemingly legitimate art concerns were intended by Baldessari to become hollow and ridiculous when presented in such a purely self-referential manner.
" geographically near to the very spots on the map that they were printed. In the Binary Code Series, Baldessari used images as information holders by alternating photographs to stand in for the on-off state of binary code
; one example alternated photos of a woman holding a cigarette parallel to her mouth and then dropping it away.
Another of Baldessari's series juxtaposed an image of an object such as a glass
, or a block of wood
, and the phrase "A glass is a glass" or "Wood is wood" combined with "but a cigar is a good smoke" and the image of the artist smoking a cigar. These directly refer to Rene Magritte
's The Treachery of Images
; the images similarly were used to stand in for the objects described. However, the series also apparently refers to Sigmund Freud's
famous attributed observation that "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar", as well as to Rudyard Kipling's
"... a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke."
Baldessari's Commissioned Paintings series took the idea of pointing literally, after he read a criticism of conceptual art
that claimed it was nothing more than pointing. Beginning with photos of a hand pointing at various objects, Baldessari then hired amateur yet technically adept artists to paint the pictures. He then added a caption "A painting by [painter's name]" to each finished painting. In this instance, he has been likened to a choreographer, directing the action while having no direct hand in it, and these paintings are typically read as questioning the idea of artistic authorship. The amateur artists have been analogized to sign painters in this series, chosen for their pedestrian methods that were indifferent to what was being painted.
artist Jean Tinguely
.
"I will not make any more boring art".
, Cincinnati, the CAM, Houston, the Van Abbemuseum
, Eindhoven, and the Museum Folkwang
, Essen. Baldessari's work has since been exhibited in the 47th Venice Biennial (1997); the Carnegie International
(1985–86), the Whitney Biennial
(1983), and Documenta
V (1972) and VII (1982). In 1994, the Museum of Modern Art
presented "Artist's Choice: John Baldessari", and in 1990-92 another retrospective survey of his work was shown at MOCA
, Los Angeles, which traveled to SFMOMA, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
, the Whitney Museum, and the Musée d'Art Contemporain
, Montreal. In 1995-96 a retrospective, "This Not That", was shown at Cornerhouse
, Manchester, and traveled to London, Stuttgart, Ljubljana, Oslo, and Lisbon. In 2009 a major retrospective exhibition Pure Beauty opened at the Tate Modern
, London, which travelled to MACBA, Barcelona; LACMA, Los Angeles; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, through 2011. Solo presentations of his work at museums have included exhibitions at the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig
Wien, the Kunsthaus Graz
, and Deutsche Guggenheim
Berlin (2004); Museo d'Arte Moderna Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Trento (2000–2001); Sprengel Museum
, Hannover, (1999–2000); and Albertina
, Vienna (1999). Baldessari was invited to curate the exhibition "Ways of Seeing: John Baldessari Explores the Collection" at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
in 2007.
New York in 2007. Baldessari's works are part of major public and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art
, the Guggenheim Museum
, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
, and the Broad Collection
.
In 1972, Ileana Sonnabend
agreed to represent him worldwide. In 1999, after twenty-six years with the Sonnabend Gallery, Baldessari went to Marian Goodman
. He is also represented by Margo Leavin, Los Angeles (since 1984), and Sprüth Magers, Berlin/London.
National City, California
National City is a city in San Diego County, California. The population was 58,582 at the 2010 census, up from 54,260 at the 2000 census. National City is the second oldest city in San Diego County and has a historic past.-History:...
) is an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lives and works in Santa Monica
Santa Mônica
Santa Mônica is a town and municipality in the state of Paraná in the Southern Region of Brazil.-References:...
and Venice, California
Initially a painter, Baldessari began to incorporate texts and photography into his canvases in the mid 1960s. He has created thousands of works that demonstrate—and, in many cases, combine—the narrative potential of images and the associative power of language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
within the boundaries of the work of art. His art has been featured in more than 200 solo exhibitions in the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and Europe. His work has had a huge influence on Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman is an American photographer and film director, best known for her conceptual portraits. Sherman currently lives and works in New York City. In 1995, she was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. She is represented by Sprüth Magers Berlin London in and Metro Pictures gallery in...
, David Salle
David Salle
David Salle is an American painter who helped define postmodern sensibility by combining figuration with a varied pictorial language of multi-imagery...
, and Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger
Barbara Kruger is an American conceptual artist. Much of her work consists of black-and-white photographs overlaid with declarative captions—in white-on-red Futura Bold Oblique or Helvetica Ultra Condensed...
among others.
Education
- 1949-53 B.A., San Diego State College, California.
- 1954-55 University of California, Berkeley.
- 1955 University of California, Los Angeles.
- 1955-57 M.A., San Diego State College, California.
- 1957-59 Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles.
- Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles.
Early career
In 1959, Baldessari began teaching art in the San Diego school system. He kept teaching for nearly three decades, in schools and junior colleges and community colleges, and eventually at the university level. In 1970, Baldessari began teaching at CalArts. His first classes included David SalleDavid Salle
David Salle is an American painter who helped define postmodern sensibility by combining figuration with a varied pictorial language of multi-imagery...
, Jack Goldstein
Jack Goldstein
Jack Goldstein was a Canadian born, California-based performance and conceptual artist turned painter in the 1980s art boom.-Early life and education:...
, James Welling
James Welling
James Welling earned both a BFA and an MFA at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia , where he studied with, among others, Dan Graham. He emerged in the 1970s as an artist for whom photographic norms and the representational field itself were and remain contested and problematized...
, Barbara Bloom
Barbara Bloom
Barbara Bloom is an American writer and TV programming executive. She earned a bachelor of science degree in theater from Skidmore College.-Career:...
, Matt Mullican
Matt Mullican
Matt Mullican is a American artist and son of artists Lee Mullican He received his BFA from CalArts in 1974, and rose to prominence as a member of the "Pictures Generation" along with such artists as Troy Brauntuch, Jack Goldstein, David Salle, Jim Welling, Sherri Levine, Cindy Sherman, Louise...
, and Troy Brauntuch
Troy Brauntuch
Troy Brauntuch is an American artist.He graduated from California Institute of the Arts with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1975.He was Adjunct Professor at Columbia University and teaches at the University of Texas....
. He quit teaching at CalArts in 1986, moving on to teach at UCLA, which he continued until 2008.
Early text paintings
Baldessari's early major works were canvasCanvas
Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, and other items for which sturdiness is required. It is also popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame...
paintings that were empty but for painted statements derived from contemporary art theory. An early attempt of Baldessari's included the hand-painted phrase "Suppose it is true after all? WHAT THEN?" on a heavily worked painted surface. However, this proved personally disappointing because the form and method conflicted with the objective use of language that he preferred to employ. Baldessari decided the solution was to remove his own hand from the construction of the image and to employ a commercial, lifeless style so that the text would impact the viewer without distractions. The words were then physically lettered by sign painters, in an unornamented black font
Font
In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
. The first of this series presented the ironic statement "A TWO-DIMENSIONAL SURFACE WITHOUT ANY ARTICULATION IS A DEAD EXPERIENCE." (1967)
Another work, Painting for Kubler, 1967–68, presented the viewer theoretical instructions on how to view it and on the importance of context and continuity with previous works. This work referenced art historian George Kubler
George Kubler
George Alexander Kubler was an American art historian and among the foremost scholars on the art of Pre-Columbian America and Ibero-American Art....
's seminal book, The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things
The Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things is the title of a book by George Kubler, published in 1962. It presents an approach to historical change which challenges the notion of style by placing the history of objects and images in a larger continuum. Kubler proposes new forms of...
. The seemingly legitimate art concerns were intended by Baldessari to become hollow and ridiculous when presented in such a purely self-referential manner.
Juxtaposing text with images
Related to his early text paintings were his Wrong series, which paired photographic images with lines of text from a book about composition. His photographic California Map Project created physical forms that resembled the letters in "CaliforniaCalifornia
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
" geographically near to the very spots on the map that they were printed. In the Binary Code Series, Baldessari used images as information holders by alternating photographs to stand in for the on-off state of binary code
Binary code
A binary code is a way of representing text or computer processor instructions by the use of the binary number system's two-binary digits 0 and 1. This is accomplished by assigning a bit string to each particular symbol or instruction...
; one example alternated photos of a woman holding a cigarette parallel to her mouth and then dropping it away.
Another of Baldessari's series juxtaposed an image of an object such as a glass
Glass
Glass is an amorphous solid material. Glasses are typically brittle and optically transparent.The most familiar type of glass, used for centuries in windows and drinking vessels, is soda-lime glass, composed of about 75% silica plus Na2O, CaO, and several minor additives...
, or a block of wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
, and the phrase "A glass is a glass" or "Wood is wood" combined with "but a cigar is a good smoke" and the image of the artist smoking a cigar. These directly refer to Rene Magritte
René Magritte
René François Ghislain Magritte[p] was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images...
's The Treachery of Images
The Treachery Of Images
The Treachery of Images is a painting by the Belgian René Magritte, painted when Magritte was 30 years old. The picture shows a pipe...
; the images similarly were used to stand in for the objects described. However, the series also apparently refers to Sigmund Freud's
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
famous attributed observation that "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar", as well as to Rudyard Kipling's
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English poet, short-story writer, and novelist chiefly remembered for his celebration of British imperialism, tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kipling received the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature...
"... a woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke."
Arbitrary games
Baldessari has expressed that his interest in language comes from its similarities in structure to games, as both operate by an arbitrary and mandatory system of rules. In this spirit, many of his works are sequences showing attempts at accomplishing an arbitrary goal, such as Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line, in which the artist attempted to do just that, photographing the results, and eventually selecting the "best out of 36 tries", with 36 being the determining number just because that is the standard number of shots on a roll of 35mm film.This work was published in 1973 by a young italian publisher: Giampaolo Prearo that was one of the first to believe and invest in the work of Baldessari. He printed two series one in 2000 copies and a second more precious reserved to the publisher in 500 copies.Pointing
Much of Baldessari's work involves pointing, in which he tells the viewer not only what to look at but how to make selections and comparisons, often simply for the sake of doing so. Baldessari critiques formalist assessments of art in a segment from his video How We Do Art Now, entitled "Examining Three 8d Nails", in which he gives obsessive attention to minute details of the nails, such as how much rust they have, or descriptive qualities such as which appears "cooler, more distant, less important" than the others.Baldessari's Commissioned Paintings series took the idea of pointing literally, after he read a criticism of conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
that claimed it was nothing more than pointing. Beginning with photos of a hand pointing at various objects, Baldessari then hired amateur yet technically adept artists to paint the pictures. He then added a caption "A painting by [painter's name]" to each finished painting. In this instance, he has been likened to a choreographer, directing the action while having no direct hand in it, and these paintings are typically read as questioning the idea of artistic authorship. The amateur artists have been analogized to sign painters in this series, chosen for their pedestrian methods that were indifferent to what was being painted.
Disowning of early work
In 1970 he burnt all of the paintings he had created between 1953 and 1966 as part of a new piece, titled "The Cremation Project". The ashes from these paintings were baked into cookies and placed into an urn, and the resulting art installation consists of a bronze plaque with the destroyed paintings' birth and death dates, as well as the recipe for making the cookies. Through the ritual of cremation Baldessari draws a connection between artistic practice and the human life cycle. Thus the act of disavowal becomes generative as with the work of auto-destructiveAuto-destructive art
Auto-Destructive art is a term invented by the artist Gustav Metzger in the early 1960s and put into circulation by his article Machine, Auto-Creative and Auto-Destructive Art in the summer 1962 issue of the journal Ark. From 1959, he had made work by spraying acid onto sheets of nylon as a protest...
artist Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...
.
Books
- Parse. Zurich: JRP|Ringier, 2010. Artist’s book version of the Ringier Annual Report 2009 project.
- John Baldessari: Koen van den Broek: This an Example of That. Gemeenteplein (Belgium): bkSM (beeldende kunst Strombeek/Mechelen), 2008. Collaborative work with Koen van den Broek.
- John Baldessari: Alejandro Cesarco: Retrospective. Cologne:Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2007. Collaborative work with Alejandro Cesarco.
- Again the Metaphor Problem and Other Engaged Critical Discourses about Art: A Conversation Between John Baldessari, Liam Gillick and Lawrence Weiner, Moderated by Beatrix Ruf. Vienna and New York: SpringerWienNewYork, 2007.
- Prima Facie: Marilyn’s Dress, A Poem (In Four Parts). Cologne: Verlag Der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2006.
- The Metaphor Problem Again: A Conversation Moderated by Beatrix Ruf. Heidelberg, Germany: Springer-Verlag, 2006. Transcription of a conversation with John Baldessari, Liam Gillick, Lawrence Weiner, Beatrix Ruf, and Cristina Bechtler.
- Yours in Food, John Baldessari: With Meditations on Eating by Paul Auster, John Baldessari, David Byrne, Dave Eggers, David Gilbert, Tim Griffin, Andy Grundberg, John Haskell, Michael More, Glenn O’Brien, Francine Prose, Peter Schjeldahl, Lynne Tillman. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2004.
- Brown and Green and Other Parables. Reykjavik, Iceland: i8 and Reykjavik Art Museum, Iceland, 2001.
- The Metaphor Problem Again. Collaboration with Lawrence Weiner. Ink-Tree Kunsnacht and Mai 35 Galerie Zurich, Switzerland.
- Zorro (Two Gestures and one Mark). Oktagon Verlag, Cologne, Germany.
- Lamb. Images by John Baldessari, story by Meg Cranston. Valencia, Spain: IVAM Centre Julio Gonzlez
- The Telephone Book (With Pearls). Gent, Belgium: Imschoot, Uitgevers for IC.
- The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy. Images by John Baldessari, text by Laurence Sterne, Arion Press, San Francisco, CA.
- Close-Cropped Tales. CEPA Gallery and Albright—Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, 1981.
- Fable - A Sentence of Thirteen Parts (With Twelve Alternate Verbs) Ending in FABLE. Hamburg, West Germany: Anatol AV und Filmproduktion
- Brutus Killed Caesar. Akron, Ohio: Emily H. Davis Art Gallery, University of Akron; in cooperation with Sonnabend Gallery, New York, and Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
- Throwing a Ball Once to Get Three Melodies and Fifteen Chords, John Baldessari: 1973. Berkeley, California: Regents of the University of California; and Irvine, California: Art Gallery, University of California at Irvine
- Four Events and Reactions. Florence: Centro Di; and Paris: Galerie Sonnabend.
- Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-Six Attempts). Milan: Giampaolo Prearo Editore S.r.L.; and Galleria Toselli
- Ingres and Other Parables. Texts in English, French, German, and Italian. London: Studio International Publications
- Choosing: Green Beans. Milan: Edizioni Toselli
Quotes
"If I saw the art around me that I liked, then I wouldn’t do art.""I will not make any more boring art".
Exhibitions
Baldessari had first gallery solo exhibition at the Molly Barnes Gallery in Los Angeles in 1968. His first retrospective exhibition in the U.S. in 1981 was mounted by the New Museum of Modern Art in New York, and traveled to the Contemporary Arts CenterContemporary Arts Center
The Contemporary Arts Center is a pioneering contemporary art museum located in Cincinnati, Ohio. The CAC is a non-collecting museum that focuses on new developments in painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, performance art and new media...
, Cincinnati, the CAM, Houston, the Van Abbemuseum
Van Abbemuseum
Van Abbemuseum is a museum of modern and contemporary art located in central Eindhoven, Netherlands, on the east bank of the Dommel river. Established in 1936, the Abbe Museum is named after its founder, Abbe Henri. Abbe was a lover of modern art and wanted to enjoy it there from Eindhoven...
, Eindhoven, and the Museum Folkwang
Museum Folkwang
Museum Folkwang is a major collection of 19th and 20th century art in Essen, Germany. The museum was established in 1922 by merging the Essener Kunstmuseum, which was founded in 1906, and the private Folkwang Museum of the collector and patron Karl Ernst Osthaus in Hagen, founded in 1901.The term...
, Essen. Baldessari's work has since been exhibited in the 47th Venice Biennial (1997); the Carnegie International
Carnegie International
The Carnegie International is the oldest North American exhibition of contemporary art from around the globe. It was first organized at the behest of industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie on November 5, 1896 in Pittsburgh. Carnegie established the International to educate and inspire the...
(1985–86), the Whitney Biennial
Whitney Biennial
The Whitney Biennial is a biennale exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, USA. The event began as an annual exhibition in 1932, the first biennial was in 1973...
(1983), and Documenta
Documenta
documenta is an exhibition of modern and contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany. It was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau which took place in Kassel at that time...
V (1972) and VII (1982). In 1994, the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
presented "Artist's Choice: John Baldessari", and in 1990-92 another retrospective survey of his work was shown at MOCA
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is a contemporary art museum with three locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near Walt Disney Concert Hall...
, Los Angeles, which traveled to SFMOMA, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the...
, the Whitney Museum, and the Musée d'Art Contemporain
Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal
The Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal is a contemporary art museum in the Place des Arts complex, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The collection includes over 7,000 works of art by more than 1,500 artists , covering contemporary art in Quebec in particular and Canada in general, as well as...
, Montreal. In 1995-96 a retrospective, "This Not That", was shown at Cornerhouse
Cornerhouse
Cornerhouse is a centre for cinema and the contemporary visual arts located very close to Oxford Road Station, on Oxford Street in Manchester, England...
, Manchester, and traveled to London, Stuttgart, Ljubljana, Oslo, and Lisbon. In 2009 a major retrospective exhibition Pure Beauty opened at the Tate Modern
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is a modern art gallery located in London, England. It is Britain's national gallery of international modern art and forms part of the Tate group . It is the most-visited modern art gallery in the world, with around 4.7 million visitors per year...
, London, which travelled to MACBA, Barcelona; LACMA, Los Angeles; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, through 2011. Solo presentations of his work at museums have included exhibitions at the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig
MUMOK
MUMOK is the abbreviation of "MUseum MOderner Kunst" Foundation Ludwig Vienna. It is located in the Museumsquartier in Vienna, Austria....
Wien, the Kunsthaus Graz
Kunsthaus Graz
The Kunsthaus Graz, Grazer Kunsthaus, or Graz Art Museum was built as part of the European Capital of Culture celebrations in 2003 and has since become an architectural landmark in Graz, Austria...
, and Deutsche Guggenheim
Deutsche Guggenheim
The Deutsche Guggenheim is an art museum, located in the ground floor of the Deutsche Bank building, a sandstone building constructed in 1920 on the Unter den Linden boulevard in Berlin, Germany....
Berlin (2004); Museo d'Arte Moderna Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Trento (2000–2001); Sprengel Museum
Sprengel Museum
The Sprengel Museum in Hanover houses one of the most significant collections of modern art in Germany. It is located in a building designed by Peter and Ursula Trint and Dieter Quast , adjacent to the Maschsee...
, Hannover, (1999–2000); and Albertina
Albertina
The Albertina is a museum in Vienna, Austria, containing the world's best collection of old master prints and drawings.Albertina, a feminine adjectival form of Albert , may also refer to:...
, Vienna (1999). Baldessari was invited to curate the exhibition "Ways of Seeing: John Baldessari Explores the Collection" at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft and is part of the...
in 2007.
Awards
- 2009 Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement, 53rd International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale,Venice, Italy
- 2006 Certificate of Recognition, the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau, Los Angeles, CA.
- 2005 Americans for the Arts, Lifetime Achievement Award, New York, October 11, 2005
- Rolex Mentor and Protégé' Arts Initiative, Honoring, New York, November 7, 2005.
- 2004 Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and SciencesAmerican Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
- 2003 “2nd Place Best Show Commercial Gallery National by US Art Critics Association for exhibit at Margo Leavin, 2003
- 2002 “Best Web-Based Original Art,” AICA USA Best Show Awards, 2001/2002 Season.
- Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities Fellow, sponsored by the University of Southern California.
- 2000 Artist Space, New York
- 1999 Spectrum-International Award for Photography of the Foundation of Lower Saxony, Germany
- College Art Associations Lifetime Achievement Award.
- 1997 Governor’s Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts, California.
- 1996 Oscar Kokoschka Prize, Austria.
- 1988 Guggenheim Fellowship
Position on the art market
Baldessari set a personal auction record when his acrylic-on-canvas piece Quality Material (1966–1968) was sold for $4,408,000 at Christie'sChristie's
Christie's is an art business and a fine arts auction house.- History :The official company literature states that founder James Christie conducted the first sale in London, England, on 5 December 1766, and the earliest auction catalogue the company retains is from December 1766...
New York in 2007. Baldessari's works are part of major public and private collections, including the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, the Guggenheim Museum
Guggenheim Museum
Guggenheim Museum may refer to:* The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, United States* The Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, Italy* The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain* The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum in Las Vegas, United States...
, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
, and the Broad Collection
Eli Broad
Eli Broad is an American businessman from Detroit, Michigan who resides in Los Angeles, California.-Life and career:An only child, Broad was born in the Bronx to Lithuanian Jewish immigrant parents. His father was a housepainter, his mother was a dressmaker. His family moved to Detroit when he...
.
In 1972, Ileana Sonnabend
Ileana Sonnabend
Ileana Sonnabend was a dealer of 20th century art. She ran a contemporary art gallery in Paris during the early 1960s. After leaving Paris, she opened a Sonnabend Gallery in New York City in 1971, at 420 West Broadway, in SoHo...
agreed to represent him worldwide. In 1999, after twenty-six years with the Sonnabend Gallery, Baldessari went to Marian Goodman
Marian Goodman
Marian Goodman Gallery is the eponymous contemporary art gallery of owner Marian Goodman. Goodman opened the Marian Goodman Gallery on East 57th Street in 1977 and relocated to its current address on West 57th Street in 1981.-Background:...
. He is also represented by Margo Leavin, Los Angeles (since 1984), and Sprüth Magers, Berlin/London.
External links
- Baldessari.org
- Baldessari's Your Name in Lights at Stedelijk MuseumStedelijk MuseumFounded in 1874, the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam is a museum for classic modern and contemporary art in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. It has been housed on the Paulus Potterstraat, next to Museum Square Museumplein and to the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum and the Concertgebouw, in Amsterdam Zuid...
- John Baldessari Catalogue Raisonné
- John Baldessari at Brooke Alexander Gallery
- Interview with John Baldessari (1973) by Moira Roth in X-TRA : Contemporary Art Quarterly
- UCLA Art faculty page
- John Baldessari - New York Times/Eli Broad Collection
- John Baldessari in the Video Data Bank.
- John Baldessari on Artabase
- "THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE. Communication and ambiguity in the work of John Baldessari" (2010) Interview with John Baldessari for Ràdio Web MACBA
- John Baldessari on "Pure Beauty", a retrospective exhibtion at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona (MACBA)
- John Baldessari - Artist on KCET Departures Venice
- Calvin Tomkins, "No More Boring Art," The New Yorker, October 18, 2010
- "John Baldessari at the Metropolitan Museum of Art", The New Yorker.
- John Baldessari: “I Am Making Art”, 1971 (Video)
- Oral history interview with John Baldessari, 1992 Apr. 4-5 from the Smithsonian Archives of American ArtArchives of American ArtThe Archives of American Art is the largest collection of primary resources documenting the history of the visual arts in the United States. More than 16 million items of original material are housed in the Archives' research centers in Washington, D.C...
- Tate: John Baldessari: Pure Beauty The artist talks about his practice. October 21, 2009
- John Baldessari exhibit catalog Wright State University's CORE