Maharam Serpentine Galleries Wallpaper by John Baldessari

About the Item

Maharam serpentine galleries wallpaper Ear/Pretzel by John Baldessari 001 John Baldessari is a conceptual artist based in Santa Monica who uses text and appropriated imagery across painting, print, installation, and video. With deadpan humor, Baldessari’s work comments on the banalities and absurdities of popular culture. (Ear/Pretzel – Pink) is one in a series of four wallpapers that isolates seemingly dissimilar elements to create formal visual relationships. The Maharam Serpentine Galleries Wallpaper collection is created by esteemed artists and architects under the curatorial direction of Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries in London. Building upon Maharam’s longstanding practice of interdisciplinary collaboration, curatorial strength, and expertise in digital printing, the wallpapers reflect a range of subject matter and styles while utilizing advanced digital printing techniques for complex, high-resolution imagery in a full-color spectrum. Reflecting a traditional framework of modestly sized repeats and a conventional 27” width, the Maharam Serpentine Galleries Wallpapers are intended for commercial and residential use. Durable and easy to maintain, the collection is printed with UV-resistant inks on a washable, latex-reinforced substrate. - 83% Cellulose, 17% Polyester - Roll size: 118" V x 27" H (300cm V x 69cm H) - Wall coverage (standard): 22 sq ft (2 sq m) - Clean with mild soap, lukewarm water and a natural sponge. Wipe with clean, clear water, and dry with a clean, soft, white cloth.

Creator:

John Baldessari (Designer),Maharam (Manufacturer)

Dimensions:

Height: 118 in (299.72 cm)Width: 27 in (68.58 cm)Depth: 0.01 in (0.26 mm)

Style:

Modern (In the Style Of)

Materials and Techniques:

Other

Place of Origin:

United States

Period:

21st Century

Date of Manufacture:

2015

Production Type:

New & Custom(Current Production)

Estimated Production Time:

3-4 weeks

Condition:

Seller Location:

New York, NY

Reference Number:

Seller: 801134–0011stDibs: LU308039110501

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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.

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