Based in Los Angeles since the 1960s, John Baldessari (b. 1931) is one of the most influential artists of his generation. Making his name as a pioneer of conceptual art in the 1960s with his text and image paintings, he shocked the art world when he announced in a newspaper that he was cremating all the artworks he had produced between 1953 and 1966. He then turned his attention to photographic works often incorporating found film stills, trawling dumpsters for discarded material from which he created his famous photo-compositions.
Baldessari's lifelong interest in language, both written and visual, has been at the forefront of both his artwork and his teaching, through which, over more than thirty years, he has nurtured and influenced succeeding generations of artists. His work has had a huge influence on Cindy Sherman, David Salle, and Barbara Kruger among others. His works incorporate wit and irony, both mocking conceptual art and delivering it in his iconic work I Am Making Art; superimposing media images and painting with his trademark dots and over-painted figures in The Duress Series; and exploring the idea of subliminal images in advertising in his sequence of ice cubes containing the words of his name, 'U-BUY BAL DES SARI'.
Baldessari's lifelong interest in language, both written and visual, has been at the forefront of both his artwork and his teaching, through which, over more than thirty years, he has nurtured and influenced succeeding generations of artists. His work has had a huge influence on Cindy Sherman, David Salle, and Barbara Kruger among others. His works incorporate wit and irony, both mocking conceptual art and delivering it in his iconic work I Am Making Art; superimposing media images and painting with his trademark dots and over-painted figures in The Duress Series; and exploring the idea of subliminal images in advertising in his sequence of ice cubes containing the words of his name, 'U-BUY BAL DES SARI'.
John Baldessari uses words and images interchangeably with equal measures of self-reflection and wit. He is a master of the visual one-liner, but beneath his playful approach lies a deep and sustained interest in ordering the world around him. He repeatedly embraces banality, integrating elements of the everyday into his work, and revelling in the absurdity of it all.
Baldessari was born in 1931 in National City, California, and has played a key role in establishing the West Coast as a leading site of innovation in the arts. As a teacher at the California Institute of the Arts and at UCLA, he has had a profound impact on generations of younger artists.
This room includes some of the few pieces that survived his 1970 Cremation Project, in which he burned almost all of his previous work. They represent his first steps towards a conceptual art practice, questioning the function of art and challenging the importance of the artist’s hand. Preserved from destruction largely by chance, these disparate works are the foundation for much of what follows.
Baldessari was born in 1931 in National City, California, and has played a key role in establishing the West Coast as a leading site of innovation in the arts. As a teacher at the California Institute of the Arts and at UCLA, he has had a profound impact on generations of younger artists.
This room includes some of the few pieces that survived his 1970 Cremation Project, in which he burned almost all of his previous work. They represent his first steps towards a conceptual art practice, questioning the function of art and challenging the importance of the artist’s hand. Preserved from destruction largely by chance, these disparate works are the foundation for much of what follows.
By 1966, Baldessari had begun to use words in the same way that most artists use images, arguing that 'a word can't substitute for an image, but is equal to it'. The subject of these text-paintings is the subsidiary information typically attached to a work of art, whether through labelling, documentation, or discussion. By appropriating and literally inscribing formulaic instructions from art manuals or quotes from notable art critics onto the surface of a canvas, Baldessari drew attention to the absurdity of prevailing aesthetic attitudes. Ironically, by continuing to work on canvas, he signalled that the text-paintings are works of art, while flouting all the rules that dictate what art is.
The text-paintings offer advice, state facts, and in one case, record where and when the canvas has been exhibited. Significantly, Baldessari removed himself from the physical act of making the paintings. Someone else built and primed the canvases before a hired sign painter added the information in the simplest way possible. The content of the paintings, together with the mode of production, forces us to reconsider the role of the artist, techniques of composition, rules of perspective and choice of subject matter.
The text-paintings offer advice, state facts, and in one case, record where and when the canvas has been exhibited. Significantly, Baldessari removed himself from the physical act of making the paintings. Someone else built and primed the canvases before a hired sign painter added the information in the simplest way possible. The content of the paintings, together with the mode of production, forces us to reconsider the role of the artist, techniques of composition, rules of perspective and choice of subject matter.
After studying at several art schools and universities in California, Baldessari returned to National City in the late 1960s and set up studio in a failed cinema. Surrounded by photographs pinned to the walls as reference material for his paintings, he began to question the need to use photography in this way and started taking snapshots around National City. Without looking through the viewfinder or attempting to compose the image he sought to circumvent making aesthetic decisions and tried to show his hometown as it was. These unremarkable images were then transferred onto canvas and paired with simple lettering to identify the site.
Baldessari continued to challenge notions of authenticity and worthwhile subject matter in his Commissioned Painting series. Based on photographs of a finger pointing at domestic objects, these images are not beautiful, but simply record the act of selection. Fourteen amateur painters were paid to copy the photographs as faithfully as possible, the idea being that art would emerge in the process. Upon completion, a sign writer inscribed the painter’s name on each canvas. The series encourages the viewer to practice connoisseurship, noting the differences between each painting. With this approach, Baldessari sought to demonstrate that technical skill is not necessary for an artist, and often less important than the right subject matter or venue for showing their work.
Baldessari continued to challenge notions of authenticity and worthwhile subject matter in his Commissioned Painting series. Based on photographs of a finger pointing at domestic objects, these images are not beautiful, but simply record the act of selection. Fourteen amateur painters were paid to copy the photographs as faithfully as possible, the idea being that art would emerge in the process. Upon completion, a sign writer inscribed the painter’s name on each canvas. The series encourages the viewer to practice connoisseurship, noting the differences between each painting. With this approach, Baldessari sought to demonstrate that technical skill is not necessary for an artist, and often less important than the right subject matter or venue for showing their work.
Having given some paintings away and put aside works that represented a new direction he was exploring, Baldessari burned his remaining canvases on 24 July 1970. This radical gesture signalled a shift in his career, and the Cremation Project became a defining work in the emerging conceptual art movement.
Shortly thereafter Baldessari moved to Los Angeles and began to work almost exclusively in photography, using multiple images to construct a new sense of order. Whilst many of the images are mundane and meaningless on their own, by carefully placing them together, Baldessari is able to construct narratives, emphasise a specific viewpoint or emotion, and encourage different ways of looking at the world. Many of these works use seemingly bizarre tasks or games with peculiar rules to bring art back into the realm of the everyday. The artist’s experimentation with film and video was a natural progression from these performative photographs. Using irony and continuing to embrace absurdity, the early videos in this room refer to other artists, but are also mantras around artistic practice.
Shortly thereafter Baldessari moved to Los Angeles and began to work almost exclusively in photography, using multiple images to construct a new sense of order. Whilst many of the images are mundane and meaningless on their own, by carefully placing them together, Baldessari is able to construct narratives, emphasise a specific viewpoint or emotion, and encourage different ways of looking at the world. Many of these works use seemingly bizarre tasks or games with peculiar rules to bring art back into the realm of the everyday. The artist’s experimentation with film and video was a natural progression from these performative photographs. Using irony and continuing to embrace absurdity, the early videos in this room refer to other artists, but are also mantras around artistic practice.
Baldessari’s engagement with the film and television industry was fuelled by his proximity to Hollywood, as well as his realisation that film and video helped him to synthesise and understand his own thoughts. Movies reinforced the importance of time and sequence that he had begun to explore in his photographs. The film industry also yielded a ready-made repertoire of images and gestures to choose from. Not only did Baldessari play with the idea of a script, he also appropriated the format of storyboards, displaying images in sequence to explore different scenarios and suggest multiple narratives.
Baldessari once explained that his goal was to make visual order by word order and vice versa. He wanted his work to be informed by the order of language, colour and other random systems, rather than considerations of taste. Informed by Structuralist methodologies, the Blasted Allegories and Word Chain series are based on complex systems of interrelated visual fragments and linguistic parts.
Baldessari once explained that his goal was to make visual order by word order and vice versa. He wanted his work to be informed by the order of language, colour and other random systems, rather than considerations of taste. Informed by Structuralist methodologies, the Blasted Allegories and Word Chain series are based on complex systems of interrelated visual fragments and linguistic parts.
Baldessari’s interest in combining images and words led him to explore the idea of subliminal images in advertising, and he began to experiment with varying levels of invisibility. Through a range of techniques, including airbrushing and double exposure, he embedded words and occasionally images within his photographs. For example, a sequence of ice cubes contains the message ‘U - BUY BAL DES SARI’. The titles of the works in the Pathetic Fallacy series instruct us as to what we should see, ascribing human emotions to inanimate objects or body parts when none of these values are, or could be, evident.
Baldessari’s portraits, with faces hidden by hats or manually altered by retouching and airbrushing, continue the theme of disguise, leading us to wonder what the artist really looks like, but also highlighting the absurdity of our obsession with capturing a likeness.
Whilst Baldessari regularly puts things together, assembling disparate images and words, the Thaumatrope Series is about taking things apart. A thaumatrope consists of two disconnected images that seem to combine into a single image when it spins. Presented statically alongside each other, it is left to the viewer to unite the images in their mind.
Baldessari’s portraits, with faces hidden by hats or manually altered by retouching and airbrushing, continue the theme of disguise, leading us to wonder what the artist really looks like, but also highlighting the absurdity of our obsession with capturing a likeness.
Whilst Baldessari regularly puts things together, assembling disparate images and words, the Thaumatrope Series is about taking things apart. A thaumatrope consists of two disconnected images that seem to combine into a single image when it spins. Presented statically alongside each other, it is left to the viewer to unite the images in their mind.
Concerned that a single image could not be the final word on anything, Baldessari used to go around for days ‘trying to look between things instead of at things’. This approach led to works like Car Color Series: All Cars Parked on the West Side of Main Street…, for which Baldessari photographed the doors of parked cars, arranging them like a colour chart in the same order as the cars were parked. Where there was no car, a blank space is left on the wall. Whilst focusing on ‘between things’, Baldessari began to question how a work is demarcated and what the edge of the work should look like.
Though Baldessari’s focus shifted to colour, his commitment to ordering systems was maintained, with the colour wheel providing the basic structure for numerous works. One example is Six Colourful Inside Jobs, in which a decorator paints a white cubicle a different colour every day. Filmed from above and played at high speed, an ordinary activity becomes mesmerising by taking on a new spatial and temporal dimension
Though Baldessari’s focus shifted to colour, his commitment to ordering systems was maintained, with the colour wheel providing the basic structure for numerous works. One example is Six Colourful Inside Jobs, in which a decorator paints a white cubicle a different colour every day. Filmed from above and played at high speed, an ordinary activity becomes mesmerising by taking on a new spatial and temporal dimension
As Baldessari’s archive of images culled from the film industry grew, he noticed several recurring themes, including the frequent appearance of weapons and violence. In his 1976 Violent Space Series, the violent act is obscured, but this shifts the emphasis to the responses surrounding it, whether horrified stares or the proximity of the feet of curious onlookers. What is hidden is as important as what is revealed, heightening the sense of tension.
Human behaviour is also the subject of Virtues and Vices (for Giotto), a large-scale work pairing images found in a memorabilia shop in Hollywood, with the seven deadly vices below and seven cardinal virtues above. Inspired by the use of space and large areas of single colour in Italian frescoes, Baldessari imbues the empty space between the ‘virtues’ and ‘vices’ – the space most viewers find themselves in – with new meaning.
Developments in printing techniques enabled Baldessari to work on a larger scale. At this time he also abandoned the standard rectangular canvas or photographic format and began combining numerous images to create unconventional shapes hanging in balance.
Human behaviour is also the subject of Virtues and Vices (for Giotto), a large-scale work pairing images found in a memorabilia shop in Hollywood, with the seven deadly vices below and seven cardinal virtues above. Inspired by the use of space and large areas of single colour in Italian frescoes, Baldessari imbues the empty space between the ‘virtues’ and ‘vices’ – the space most viewers find themselves in – with new meaning.
Developments in printing techniques enabled Baldessari to work on a larger scale. At this time he also abandoned the standard rectangular canvas or photographic format and began combining numerous images to create unconventional shapes hanging in balance.
Baldessari is a master at creating tension, simply by altering images slightly or introducing incongruous elements. A drop of blood on a woman’s face alongside a group of pelicans creates ominous overtones, as if the pelicans are to blame; a horizontal tree replete with fox interrupts a moment between a man and a woman, separating them irreconcilably; a single kiss is surrounded by guns and scenes of panic. Another work combines numerous images of shadows, the quintessential clue that something critical, and usually violent, is about to take place in a movie.
The power of suggestion is present in all of these works, including Horizontal Men, in which images of living and dead men are stacked on top of each other to suggest that even the walking men towards the bottom of the composition are lifeless. Turned on their side, their journeys are halted, and they become simply another body in the pile.
The power of suggestion is present in all of these works, including Horizontal Men, in which images of living and dead men are stacked on top of each other to suggest that even the walking men towards the bottom of the composition are lifeless. Turned on their side, their journeys are halted, and they become simply another body in the pile.
By the mid 1980s, Baldessari had begun to conceal faces by strategically placing white spots or, later, coloured dots on ordinary black and white portraits, the kind that would appear in the society section of a local newspaper. Initially Baldessari had avoided using such images because he detested the life they represented and because the faces, even if they were unfamiliar, dominated the image. Covering the faces rendered them anonymous and powerless, enabling the artist to emphasise other elements in the photographs.
The dots form a system, linking the divergent narratives of each image to the adjacent one, encouraging viewers to read the images together and guess at possible hidden connections. This structure is reinforced through the careful use of large blocks of colour and line, literally linking
The dots form a system, linking the divergent narratives of each image to the adjacent one, encouraging viewers to read the images together and guess at possible hidden connections. This structure is reinforced through the careful use of large blocks of colour and line, literally linking
together incompatible subjects, like a mountain climber and scuba diver.
Baldessari’s multi-part works became increasingly complicated constructions, with the shapes often following the contours of the body and greater numbers of framed and unframed images being combined. Dots no longer suffice, and entire bodies are coloured in, creating grey, orange, and blue silhouettes that obliterate and simultaneously emphasise the figures. Lengthy titles describe the various components, but also give crucial clues as to how the work can be read.
The primary colours of the over-painting often belie dark and disturbing subject matter. Inventory combines black and white images of shoppers amongst well-stocked supermarket shelves with a photograph of a train car piled high with the naked corpses of concentration camp victims. Based on Baldessari’s childhood memories of hearing about the Holocaust and his sense of the fragility of civilisation, this juxtaposition highlights the pervasiveness of consumerism and its potential to increase self-indulgence and dull social consciousness. We are forced to remember a time when people were treated like objects, numbered, inventoried, stacked
The primary colours of the over-painting often belie dark and disturbing subject matter. Inventory combines black and white images of shoppers amongst well-stocked supermarket shelves with a photograph of a train car piled high with the naked corpses of concentration camp victims. Based on Baldessari’s childhood memories of hearing about the Holocaust and his sense of the fragility of civilisation, this juxtaposition highlights the pervasiveness of consumerism and its potential to increase self-indulgence and dull social consciousness. We are forced to remember a time when people were treated like objects, numbered, inventoried, stacked
In The Overlap Series, Baldessari continues to construct relationships between disparate images. He combines two unrelated photographs - a melodramatic film still and a snapshot of a mundane urban vista - using a minimal amount of brushwork to continue elements of one image into the other.
Baldessari uses colour to unify fragments, but also to highlight certain aspects of the original image. In Five Yellow Divisions: With Persons (Black and White) the yellow line links the different situations depicted, but also highlights the emotions in each photograph. In other works, the over-painting is so extensive and seemingly unrestrained that it envelops the figures, resembling Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings.
In recent years, Baldessari’s appropriation and manipulation of found images has become increasingly sophisticated, with the subtle use of recessed and raised surfaces, adding further depth and interest to the picture plane
Baldessari uses colour to unify fragments, but also to highlight certain aspects of the original image. In Five Yellow Divisions: With Persons (Black and White) the yellow line links the different situations depicted, but also highlights the emotions in each photograph. In other works, the over-painting is so extensive and seemingly unrestrained that it envelops the figures, resembling Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings.
In recent years, Baldessari’s appropriation and manipulation of found images has become increasingly sophisticated, with the subtle use of recessed and raised surfaces, adding further depth and interest to the picture plane
In the Goya Series Baldessari returns to the relationship between language and image, pairing photographs of banal objects with non-specific, yet evocative words derived from titles used by Spanish artist Francisco de Goya. In isolation both image and text are meaningless, but when combined they generate the possibility of multiple readings.
The Prima Facie series tests whether a word can accurately describe a facial expression. Applying words to film stills and therefore to acted emotions, Baldessari sought to show that while we may think we understand something at first glance, it becomes more complicated when we try to prove it. Baldessari’s investigations follow through several states until the facial expression is replaced with a square of commercial paint, with the manufacturer's name for the colour inscribed beneath it.
The face and facial features are recurring subjects for Baldessari. In the series Noses & Ears Etc. the whole face is coloured and flattened, except for the most bizarre appendages, a nose or an ear and sometimes both. While humorous, there is an element of aggression in these works. Faces are disfigured, titles mention fists rather than hands, and blood trickles from an isolated nose on a green head-shape.
The Prima Facie series tests whether a word can accurately describe a facial expression. Applying words to film stills and therefore to acted emotions, Baldessari sought to show that while we may think we understand something at first glance, it becomes more complicated when we try to prove it. Baldessari’s investigations follow through several states until the facial expression is replaced with a square of commercial paint, with the manufacturer's name for the colour inscribed beneath it.
The face and facial features are recurring subjects for Baldessari. In the series Noses & Ears Etc. the whole face is coloured and flattened, except for the most bizarre appendages, a nose or an ear and sometimes both. While humorous, there is an element of aggression in these works. Faces are disfigured, titles mention fists rather than hands, and blood trickles from an isolated nose on a green head-shape.
One of the founders and innovators of conceptual art, John Baldessari has continued his exploration of the structure of artistic practice and visual thinking for close to forty years. Photographs, text, and spots of color are the frequent starting points for his work, and these simple devices uncover the visual and ideological mechanics of how an artwork directs a viewer’s eye and thoughts. Baldessari’s wit and humor bring levity and self-reflection to these important proceedings. Baldessari's influence on several generations of artists, many now well-known in their own right, comes from the example of his innovative work as well as his teaching at the California Institute of the Arts and at UCLA.
The Broad Art Foundation’s The Spectator is Compelled . . . , 1967-68 was completed in National City, California before Baldessari moved to Los Angeles. For the work, Baldessari posed for a photograph that was exposed directly to the canvas. The photograph shows the artist in the center of the canvas, staring down a city street. The sides of the street mimic the sight lines of traditional painting perspective. In a gesture both comic and revolutionary, Baldessari quotes a composition textbook and uses the text to tell the viewer literally what the photograph expects their eyes to do, namely, that they “look directly down the road and into the middle of the picture.” Balsessari, separating the rules or hidden tricks of an image from the image itself, opened up a world of idea based art, widening the field of what art could be.
In Seashells Tridents Frames , 1988, also in the Foundation, Baldessari assembled a grouping of black-and-white photographs which are cropped or partially covered and have no obvious relationship to each other. The cropped image of a man "fishing" with a trident poised over still waters, the suited man in the leftmost image presenting ornate picture frames, and the central image of a collection of seashells on display in a cabinet all serve as metaphors not only for the contemporary artist’s search for choice images, but also for the presentation, framing and display of those images as well as the artist's self or identity. Interpreted in this way, Seashells Tridents Frames becomes a contemplation of issues about art making that have fascinated Baldessari and propelled his work for years.
The Foundation’s Noses & Ears, Etc. , 2006 continues Baldessari’s interest in often dark themes balanced with visual tricks and humor. A man, maybe a criminal or a hostage, is having his pistol taken away. The use of color and whimsy dissolves the potential threat of the weapon into a complex visual situation.
Jessica Morgan and John Baldessari
John BaldessariNoses and Ears, Etc (Part Three): Altered Person (Colour) 2007Courtesy 2009 John Baldessari Studio © John BaldessariArchival inkjet print mounted on Sintra110.5x161.3x7.6cm
The Los Angeles-based artist John Baldessari (b.1931) made his name as a pioneer of conceptual art in the 1960s with his text and image paintings. After cremating most of the work he had produced between 1953 and 1966, he began to make photographic works, often incorporating film stills, as well as videos, many of which have become icons. At the forefront of his imagery has been an interest in written and visual language, and his status as a teacher is legendary. But where did it all come from? Here, he talks to the curator of Tate Modern's forthcoming retrospective of his work.
Context:John Baldessari: Pure Beauty, Tate Modern, 13 October 2009 - 10 January 2010Works by John Baldessari in the Tate Collection In the Studio: John Baldessari, TATE ETC. issue 13, Summer 2008
John BaldessariTwo Voided Blocks 1990Courtesy 2009 John Baldessari Studio © John BaldessariBlack-and-white photographs, vinyl paint157 x 245 cm each
JESSICA MORGAN You grew up in America as the son of immigrants, an Austrian father and Danish mother. To what extent were you influenced by your parental background?
JOHN BALDESSARI I certainly noticed that my parents were different from my friends’ parents. We ate different food, for a start. My mother was very health-conscious and made all sorts of healthy things, such as brown bread, yoghurt and tomato juice with yeast in it. I remember drinking a tea made of alfalfa and thinking: “Why can’t I have Lipton’s like my friends do?” I was born at the end of the Great Depression, and my parents had become totally self-sufficient. They grew all their fruits and vegetables, had rabbits and chickens and made their own wine. We would fill five-gallon water bottles with spring water every Sunday. There was a huge compost pit, long before anybody else had one. My mother and father came from different social backgrounds. My mother was middle class, and my father had grown up with eleven brothers and sisters in a house where the family lived up top and the livestock below. He left as soon as he could cobble together some money for a passage to America.
John BaldessariNational City (w,1,2,3,4,5,6,B) D details - 2 and 3 (1996-2009)Courtesy 2009 John Baldessari Studio © John BaldessariColour photographs with acrylic paint46x46cm
JESSICA MORGAN He was the only one who left?
JOHN BALDESSARI Yeah. All the other brothers were killed in the war.
JESSICA MORGAN And how did he meet your mother?
JOHN BALDESSARI That’s a mystery. He must have been a charmer though. He worked for a while in a Colorado coal mine, and made extra money picking up cigarette ends, breaking them open, re-rolling them and selling them. Somehow he got to California, where my mother was working as a private nurse. He had a restaurant for a while, but soon moved into the salvage business. He would tear down houses and recycle all the materials. I remember I would help out – taking nails out of lumber. He got enough money to buy a building site, and then he would use that stuff to build a house and buy what new materials he had to. He’d sell that and then keep on going. He was an entrepreneur, a self-made man. Near the end of his life he had enough to build a movie theatre, an office building…
JESSICA MORGAN The movie theatre that used to be your studio? The one I have seen pictures of stacked with paintings?
JOHN BALDESSARI Yes, that was my studio after the theatre became vacant.
John Baldessari's studio with work displayed for the last time before burning in Cremation Project in 1970
John Baldessari (centre) overseeing Cremation Project !970
JESSICA MORGAN Was there any art in your parents' house?
JOHN BALDESSARI We had one painting, which was a bad copy of Caravaggio’s Boy with a Basket of Fruit (c.1593). However, my mother was insistent on culture, so my sister and I took piano lessons. I get my love of classical music from that.
John BaldessariStills from Baldessari Sings LeWitt 1972Courtesy 2009 John Baldessari Studio/New Art Trust, San Francisco © John BaldessariBlack-and-white video, sound, 15min
JESSICA MORGAN You also have a strong interest in literature, and language and words feature strongly in your work. Where did that come from?
JOHN BALDESSARI My mother would have novels sent to her from Denmark. I remember the feel of the book – the way you had to slice open the pages. I got a real love of books that way. They were all in Danish, of course. My father’s attitude was different. He would say: “Why are you spending all your money on buying books, I can get them for you for ten cents apiece.” He could barely get through reading the newspaper at night.
JESSICA MORGAN Was there a difference linguistically?
JOHN BALDESSARI Her English was quite good, but his was not so good, even later in life.
JESSICA MORGAN Do you think those two elements affected the way you read language, or the way you used language in your work?
JOHN BALDESSARI Well, no, but it is a good point. I think something that got into my system was having to explain things to my father because of the language barrier. I’d try one way, and if that didn’t work, I’d try another. It was a strange experience. Certainly, I have used the same method in my art and in my teaching.
John BaldessariStills from Two Colourful Melodies 1977Courtesy Electronic Arts Intermix © John BaldessariColour video, sound, 5.30min
JESSICA MORGAN What were your first influences in art? Did you have any pre-school training?
JOHN BALDESSARI No. National City was such a poor area. I took art classes – pastels, watercolours of flowers. I guess I was good, because there was something called the National Scholastic Art Award in the US, and my art teacher encouraged me to enter. At that time I was experimenting with photography, so I put in a photograph, and I won. That’s where it all began. My father’s response was: “Oh that’s nice, did you make any money?” He wasn’t mean-spirited; for him it was aboutsurvival.
John Baldessari in his studio (1992), photographed by Sidney B FelsenCourtesy 2009 John Baldessari Studio © John Baldessari
John BaldessariRepair/Retouch Series: An Allegory About Wholeness (Plate and Man with Crutches) 1976Courtesy 2009 John Baldessari Studio © John BaldessariFour black-and-white photographs, mounted on board38.1x61cm
JESSICA MORGAN So when were you first aware of art and the history of art?
JOHN BALDESSARI My sister encouraged me to go to San Diego State College, so I went there in 1949. I nearly chose to major in chemistry as I really liked the subject, but I decided to study art instead. I didn’t have a clue about art history. I didn't know anything about Picasso or Matisse. I remember seeing Matisse in a history of art course for the first time, and I was appalled and said so to my instructor. He said, well I bet in a year you really like him. He was right. In a year I was copying him.
JESSICA MORGAN How was the teaching then?
JOHN BALDESSARI They were teachers first and artists second. I had this one instructor I liked a lot who seemed to be serious about painting. He suggested I submit a slide to a local competition – and I got in. That’s where I got my first review. The LA Times critic said mine was one of the best paintings. Later, in 1954, I enrolled in summer classes at UCLA, where the star attraction was the hot LA artist of the time called Rico Lebrun – a Neapolitan who had moved to America. He seemed like a real artist. He would come over to see my painting, always bringing a visitor – one time it was the composer Lucas Foss, another it was the painter Bill Bryce. Lebrun gave a weekly public lecture. The last one he gave was all about my work, which really surprised me. Afterwards, he asked if I had thought about being an artist. I said I hadn’t. He then advised me to enrol at the Jepson Art Institute run by his friend Herb Jepson – it became the Otis Art Institute. I was there from 1957 to 1959. It was a very traditional place where you drew or sculpted from the model. When I was there I entered another competition in Los Angeles. The LA Times said about my drawings: “It’s nice to see that somebody in Los Angeles can draw.” I thought, okay, now I don’t need to draw any more, so I gave that up and got a teaching job.
JESSICA MORGAN At this point you were still teaching high school?
JOHN BALDESSARI The period for me was good because I was isolated from any influences of Los Angeles, although I would make monthly treks to look at shows. I kept applying for college teaching jobs and getting rejected. So it just became clear to me that I would continue teaching high school. I knew I would make my father happy if I got married and had children. That’s all he cared about. I was trying to find out in a Cartesian way, I suppose, what art really was at some ground level, so a lot of my early work was about that. But I got tired of people saying my kid can do that, and I decided, well, why not just use language, why not use words.
JESSICA MORGAN Was there anything that you’d seen containing text that interested you?
JOHN BALDESSARI Yeah, certainly Braque, Picasso and Lichtenstein.
John BaldessariMan Fallen In S-Curve (With Man Looking Down And Man Looking Up) 1984Courtesy 2009 John Baldessari Studio © John BaldessariBlack-and-white photographs122x132cm
JESSICA MORGAN How did you make the leap to teaching at art school?
JOHN BALDESSARI My big break in my life came when the University of California decided to open a campus in San Diego. One of my part-time jobs was at the UCLA extension, as it was called, and I got to know Paul Brach, who was chosen to be the chairperson of the new art department. We hit it off – he has a bad sense of humour like mine. One day he called me and said would you teach in my faculty two days a week, I’ll give you a studio and I’ll give you more salary than you’re getting now. I said, whoa, of course I will.
JESSICA MORGAN At this point in the early 1970s you were making the text and photo works. Where does the text come from?
JOHN BALDESSARI It is all found text, although now and then I might change a word. I would take the idea to local sign painters and give them instructions. I would say: don’t try to make it decorative. I got them to use all the colours that I liked – so some are grey, some are kind of icky pale green, pink, or yellow.
JESSICA MORGAN In 1970 you made a radical gesture – you cremated most of your paintings. Why did you do that?
JOHN BALDESSARI Well, you said you’d seen photographs of this movie theatre full of paintings. I was drowning, inundated by paintings. I was getting more and more doubtful that only painting was art. The fun of it was doing it, and I thought I don’t really have to own these things, nobody’s ever going to buy them. And I had a slide record of everything… One of my first ideas – which may have come out of watching too many Bond movies – was to photograph each one and make it into a microdot. I would put them under stamps and mail them to friends, but that seemed too labour intensive. Then I thought about the idea of my work as a cycle – an eternal return – so all these materials, pigments and canvas that came out of the ground would return to it. It was a body of work, and I said what if these works are me, and so I’ll cremate them literally as a body. I found a crematorium that would do it. The guy that did the actual cremating studied art and was really into the idea. We had nine and a half boxes filled with the ashes of my work.
JESSICA MORGAN Around this time you made a series of video works which have now become iconic pieces – such as I Am Making Art (1971), where you make very simple movements with your body; Baldessari Sings LeWitt (1972), in which you put Sol LeWitt’s theoretical reflections on art to music; and Teaching a Plant the Alphabet (1972).
JOHN BALDESSARI Yeah. By that time I was teaching at the Californian Institute of Arts (CalArts). The Sony Portapak had come out and at CalArts we had 26 of them. Can you believe that? So every artist started making videos.
JESSICA MORGAN Your choice of subject matter seemed like a spoof on other artists.
JOHN BALDESSARI I would make these videos on a Sunday, and they were meant just for me and my students.
JESSICA MORGAN They made very conscious references to the art of the time though…
JOHN BALDESSARI I thought conceptual art at that time was too pedantic. There were many ways artists used language, so why not try some other way? I was, of course, aware of the idea that an artist makes choices – if I made any little body movement in I Am Making Art, that was a choice, so I’d just made art. I love pushing things to their logical extreme, which at some point becomes ridiculous if you go with it far enough. Teaching a Plant the Alphabet was done during the hippy times. There were books about how to communicate with your plants. I thought, okay, I guess’ll start with the alphabet and then we’ll talk…
John BaldessariTrying to Roll a Hoop in a Perfect Circle (Best Sequence 216 Frames) 1972 - 1973Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris © John BaldessariNine black-and-white photographs and pencilDetails - 1 of 9, 12.7x15.2cm
John BaldessariCommissioned Painting: A Painting by George Walker 1969Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery © John BaldessariOil and acrylic on canvas150.5x115.6cm
JESSICA MORGAN How did the Commissioned Paintings come about?
JOHN BALDESSARI David Antin and I both had a fondness for amateur art. I felt that art didn’t have to be about the touch of the artist, you could be an art director, or strategist – so why not just commission some of these amateur artists to paint my work? I had seen their pictures – Mexicans asleep under a cactus; a ship in moonlight – at the county fairs that my father used to take me to. I decided to give them new subject matter. At the time I was doing this other project with a friend walking around pointing to things in a visual field that caught his attention, so I combined the two ideas. I went to the Sunday painters with a dozen or so slides and said: “Listen, I’ll pay you X amount of dollars to paint this. I don’t want you to make art out of it, just render the slide as faithfully as you know how on the canvas.” I would give them the canvas with the area masked out and they painted it.
John BaldessariFrames and Ribbon 1988Courtesy Simon Lee Gallery, London, and L&M Arts, New York © John BaldessariBlack-and-white photographs and vinyl paint213.6x142.2cm
JESSICA MORGAN Around this time you started to introduce appropriated photography into your work? What led you to use these images?
JOHN BALDESSARI I was trying to be artless. I thought the more I’m involved with art, the more artful I’m becoming, so how do I get myself out of that? Well, have other people do things for me, or just use other people’s imaging.
JESSICA MORGAN How did you develop the idea of making works out of multiple photographs?
JOHN BALDESSARI It was very simple. Nikon had launched a camera with a motor so you could do sequences of photographs. At the time I was making work with video and film, but I had a little epiphany on a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I saw the paintings hung down the wall, and I realised they looked like a strip of film. So if a van Gogh painting was one frame, what would the frame before or after that be like? I was thinking art photographically. My early videos and films looked like still photography, and my still photography looked like films. But then I also began to think that central to life is not stasis but flux. I didn’t want to be a kinetic sculptor, but I thought somehow the idea of movementshould be addressed.
JESSICA MORGAN Much of your appropriated photography is not contemporary. Why is that?
JOHN BALDESSARI Because the pictures were cheap at the time. What I discovered about images from the movies – and this was only afterwards – was that people carry them around in their head. Sometimes they even control the person’s behaviour. I can use that image bank that people have and begin to tweak it and change the meaning. I suppose if I had an image bank of more recent stuff, I would do the same thing. For a while I had a guy working in a movie house and he wasgiving me stuff. Some of those photographers back then… they were really good at doing production stills.
John BaldessariNoses and Ears, Etc (Part Three): Altered Person Being Shaved 2007Courtesy 2009 John Baldessari Studio © John BaldessariArchival inkjet print mounted on Sintra 128.9x110.5x7.6cm
JESSICA MORGAN To what extent do you think the process of your work is reflected back into your teaching – and vice versa?
JOHN BALDESSARI One seems to mirror the other, which is something that started with trying to make things clear with my father. I think that even if I have an audience of one, art is about having somebody to talk to.
John BaldessariNoses and Ears, Etc.: The Gemini Series: Profile with Ear and Nose (Colour) 2006Published by Gemini G E L, edition of 45Courtesy 2009 John Baldessari Studio © John BaldessariScreen print on paper mounted on Sintra with hand painting76.2x69.2cm
‘John Baldessari: Pure Beauty’, in association with Rolex, Tate Modern, 13 October – 10 January, organised by Tate Modern and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, curated by Jessica Morgan, curator of contemporary art at Tate Modern, and Leslie Jones, associate curator, prints and drawings at LACMA, and assisted by Kerryn Greenberg, assistant curator,Tate Modern.Tours to Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 10 February – 25 April; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 27 June – 12 September; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 17 October – 9 January 2011.