«If God Michelangelo was a hippie ..." So a journalist Sarah Thornton (Sarah Thornton) describes in his book "Seven Days in the art-world" appearance of the artist John Baldessari (John Baldessari, p. 1931), famous for its tremendous growth and snow-white beard. It is impossible to imagine the American art of the twentieth century without this man's remarkable appearance, on whose ideas had been raised a huge number of artists and designers. Last year, Baldessari finally secured its status as a "living monument": the organizers of the Venice Biennale solemnly presented him an honorary Golden Lion, and the curators of the gallery "Tate Modern" and the Art Museum of Los Angeles County gave him a huge retrospective. The exhibition has already died down in London, now it passes in California, and in the fall will go to New York, where it will be in one of the most "classical" museums - the New York Metropolitan.

• John Baldessari
  Source: baldessari.net

Baldessari - This artist-brand, widely known in 1980, in an era of boom in contemporary art (to a major "defendants" who were his students and just those to whom he has had a tremendous impact - David Salle, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger etc.). In 1993 the brand was even used in advertising Gap, where a smiling master of playing with the black ball. The latter is a reference to the most famous of his works - photographs, where the characters face plastering paper cups. List of works Baldessari incredibly high, and cover all in one article is not possible, so we will focus on its major projects.

In 1970 Baldessari taught in California high school CalArts, is famous for its support for experimental art. His course was entitled Post-Studio Art - that is innovative conceptual art, which does not need a workshop. Inspired by the idealistic impulses of the last decade, progressive teachers and students sought to distance itself from the art mainstream, he was a stranger to both commercialism of pop art, and the "spitting on the canvas of his ego, which were famous for Pollock and other abstract expressionists. Outdated notions of the artist as hovering over all worldly genius, solitary, attempting to create a "masterpiece" for centuries. At CalArts in the course of a cold, detached aesthetics, an ironic comment on society and culture, the desire to minimize the presence in the work of the ego, and - most importantly - to create art, appealing primarily to the intellect. Of course, it should be noted, and attention to new media ... Baldessari himself, who began as a painter, he broke with the "highest of the arts" at about the same time - he even ceremonially burned his early paintings, produced for their "ashes" box in the form of an old book. He felt that he could say much more with text, performances, videos and, of course, photography.

• John Baldessari
  Laundry Econ-O-Wash at the intersection of 14 th Street and Highland. National City, California. 1966-1968
  Source: blog.photography.si.edu
• John Baldessari
  quality material ... 1967-1968
  Source: artnet.com

When Baldessari takes his camera to create art, be sure - He will send it from there to the fact that usually take pictures, both professionals and amateurs. In one of his early projects, it is translated on canvas negligent inconspicuous images of different parts of the native quiet town National City, which hired a painter-vyvesochnik did inscriptions indicating the location. Exhibiting these clumsy landscapes with laundry and other "beauty" of a series of "morgnesh - you will not notice", the artist seemed to suggest the viewer that the familiar art (both classical and modernist) leaves out the whole world. In the same period (late 1960) there were canvases with text taken from both the academic writings of abstract expressionism Clement Greenberg, and from popular books with tips for amateur artists. The painter lamplight pathologist at the traditional notion of the perception of art, according to which the foreground feelings and emotions of the viewer, and the task of intelligence is simply to develop the ability to distinguish between the manners of the authors and to assess the quality of painting. This topic has been devoted to more recent "Pictures at an order" (1969) - quite realistic pictures of hands whose index fingers are directed at something small (a comment to the statement of abstract painter Al Held, "Conceptual art is only indicative of things). Underneath each picture was the name employed by the artist, it is satisfied - the audience asked to compare the work and thus "to develop their abilities expert».

• John Baldessari
  Kiss /Panic. 1984
  Source: artnet.com
• John Baldessari
  Bloody Sundae . 1987
  Source: whitewallmag.com

In the 1970's, Baldessari began appropriated photographs. Typically, these were unnecessary pictures frames from films and commercials, where unknown actors were laughing, kissing, and threatened each other with pistols and fell from their horses - like three-kopeck good in the shops near Hollywood was in bulk. The artist began to use them in various compositions that explore how the perception of a given image varies depending on the context - for example, in some works he has done under the same pictures of a signature. In early 1980 came his most famous "know-how - the very same circles. Baldessari somehow got some picture of the powerful ", which caused his disgust (on his own admission, he had always been repulsive to world power and money) and he decided to somehow her" modified ". He got the idea to stick to the face to round sticker-price tags from the store. Immediately implement it, the artist has experienced tremendous relief: the hated representatives of the "elite" become completely anonymous and can even say, turned into inanimate objects.

Subsequently, the author used the rings for different purposes, the most obvious of which - a statement about the perception of modern man, looking at the world through the prism of media. Why faces are sealed? Yes because they're not needed. People are so accustomed to the Hollywood type that they can safely middle of painting missing in my imagination. Whether chtó close circle - one of the balls thrown a juggler, or a person movie character - "a rich businessman": for all that is hidden, the viewer in the brain is an appropriate cliche.

• John Baldessari
  From the series "overlap". Running girl and cosmic events. 2000-2001
  Source: asonancias.com

most impressive works are Baldessari been severed from the composition, where there are not only pasted faces but entire shaded areas. In these works, the artist combines elements at first glance do not have each other nothing (critics suggest the proximity of these creations to surrealism, in particular, to Magritte). Artist disorient the audience, forcing them to seek the relationship between images (why alongside a photograph of pelicans a photograph of a society lady with pririsovannoy blood from his nose? "), Ask about the meaning of that inevitably escapes. The key to this wizard is space between, which is a world of possibilities, which we did not even imagine,. In Baldessari world falls apart: take his multi-prints, where some elements are painted, some are made in relief - picture of the document on the real situation into a conglomeration of abstract pieces. It shows that the slightest modification of an image or a change of context can give a new narrative. Take, for instance, shot a man and a woman, gently staring at each other. What happens if you put between the picture foxes? .. Or circle the face of a man in red (this can mean ... love, or danger). Baldessari often plays with the symbolism of color and masterful rhymes various reasons: for example, in one composition selected different colors the waves gently moving in the key accordion. It can not but recall the famous (and tragic that Baldessari not really typical of) the work "Inventory" (1987), where the abundance on supermarket shelves rhymes with a pile of bodies emaciated concentration camp prisoners. As the artist says, "civility - this is just a thin cover, which can fly at any moment. Works by Baldessari subtle, ironic and elegant, but behind them is a wild, unpredictable world.

«The volume of production," Baldessari sufficiently large. His works, mostly prints and photographic compositions, often appear at auction. But the most expensive works of the artist is painting. Record belongs to the textual canvas of "quality material ..." (1967-1968), which in 2007 brought to Christie's 3,9 million dollars (if Estima 1,5-2 million). Behind her is "Painting for Kubler" (1966-1968), pushed in 2009 for 1.6 million during the same pre-assessment. But the imprint of the artist can be bought for a few thousand, though, if The Draw work many times before been published, its price may rise to tens or even hundreds of times.

Material prepared by Julia Maksimova, AI

Source: artprice.com , artnet.com , artinvestment.ru