John Baldessari
Person with Pillow: Desire, Lust, Fate
The voids in John 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 her posture to suggest her emotional state. The two images stacked above the woman can be read as comic-style thought bubbles, intimating that she has lust, desire, and fate on her mind.
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.