John Baldessari
Although Conceptual artist John Baldessari is best known for the richly provocative juxtapositions of photographic images and text that characterize his prints and paintings, he actually had something of a traditional art world upbringing — if such a thing exists.
Born in Southern California, Baldessari earned several art degrees, from art education to art history to painting. He also taught art at various institutions such as the California Institute of the Arts throughout his life. Among his many students were David Salle, Tony Oursler, Jim Shaw and Mike Kelley. While helping to shape the art world in Los Angeles, he simultaneously developed his own name as an artist.
In the 1950s, Baldessari’s works were primarily semiabstract paintings, but during the late 1960s, he began to distance himself from painting, as he bristled at the idea of limiting art to a single medium. Baldessari decided to take his career in a dramatically different direction. He burned all his paintings at a funeral home in San Diego, then incorporated the ashes into cookie dough, producing (nonedible) baked goods for an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
“It was a very public and symbolic act,” he said, “like announcing you’re going on a diet in order to stick to it.”
From that point on, Baldessari took on an MO of experimentation, dabbling in mediums from video to printmaking to sculpture. “I just stare at something and say: Why isn’t that art? Why couldn’t that be art?” he said in an interview in 2008.
The works for which Baldessari is most highly regarded, however, are striking collages of images and text — many of which are seemingly nonsensical — such as Tom’s Hand Grips the Steering, Wheel… (2015), in which the title’s text is displayed beneath a hippopotamus. As such is his body of work: bringing a sense of joviality to the sometimes too-serious world of Conceptual art.
Before he died in 2020, Baldessari was honored with the 2014 National Medal of Arts Award, the Americans for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award, the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and more.
Find original John Baldessari art on 1stDibs.
21st Century and Contemporary American John Baldessari
1990s American Modern John Baldessari
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20th Century French John Baldessari
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Early 2000s American Arts and Crafts John Baldessari
Glass, Oak, Paper
1980s American Post-Modern Vintage John Baldessari
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Early 2000s English Modern John Baldessari
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21st Century and Contemporary American Modern John Baldessari
Fabric, Art Glass, Wood
1970s Belgian Mid-Century Modern Vintage John Baldessari
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21st Century and Contemporary American Expressionist John Baldessari
Other
1990s Italian Modern John Baldessari
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21st Century and Contemporary French Modern John Baldessari
Aluminum
21st Century and Contemporary American Modern John Baldessari
Paper, Paint
1970s American Vintage John Baldessari
Metal
1950s Swedish Modern Vintage John Baldessari
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1970s American Modern Vintage John Baldessari
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2010s American John Baldessari
2010s American John Baldessari
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