John Baldessari

Person with Pillow: Desire, Lust, Fate 1991 101

The voids in Baldessari’s painted photographs are simultaneously positive and negative spaces, both additive and subtractive. In Person with Pillow: Desire, Lust, Fate, a woman’s facial expression is obscured by such void, leaving only...

One Must 1997 101

In One Must, an image of a pair of scissors, accompanied by the words of work’s title, poses an ominous question about the relationship between the image and the text. The otherwise banal scissors become suggestively violent in relation...

Arms & Legs (Specif. Elbows & Knees), etc.: Arm (with Bottle) 2007 101

Arms & Legs (Specif. Elbows & Knees), etc.: Arm (with Bottle) belongs to Baldessari’s most recent series of paintings in which the artist brings together photographic, painted, and three-dimensional elements, to juxtapose...

John Baldessari is one of the most influential contemporary artists by virtue of his own conceptual practice and as teacher at CalArts, where he founded the “post-studio” movement in 1971. Baldessari’s work has assumed various forms for more than three decades, including photography, painting, conceptual gestures, video, books, prints, objects, and installations.