John Baldessari: “I will not make anymore boring art”
Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-Six Attempts)
John Anthony Baldessari is an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lives and works in Santa Monica and Venice in California. Initially a painter, Baldessari began to incorporate texts and photography into his canvases in the mid-1960s. In 1970 he began working in printmaking, film, video, installation, sculpture and photography.
In 1970, Baldessari and some friends burnt all of the paintings he had created between 1953 and 1966 as part of a new piece, titled The Cremation Project. The ashes from these paintings were baked into cookies resulting in an art installation consisting of a bronze plaque with the destroyed paintings’ birth and death dates, as well as the recipe for making the cookies. Through this project, Baldessari draws a connection between artistic practice and the human life cycle. This project highlights as he quotes ‘no more boring art’ which i believe is very interesting. I like the way in which he incorporates a social event in the creation of this art which appears to have been fun and exciting. This comes under the theme of ‘play’ in the way they’re playing with the existing art to create a new piece. He has many other ‘playful’ projects however this one stood out to me because of the extent he went to and also the meaning it has being it too.
In this video, Baldessari makes many arm movements, reciting the phrase, “I am making art,” after each gesture. Baldessari has always been conscious of the power of choice in artistic practice. Here, he carefully associates the choice of arm movements with the artistic choices that an artist may make, concluding that choice is a form of art in itself. Another way in which this piece can be interpreted is a reaction to artists in the late 1960s and early 1970s that explored the use of their own bodies and gestures as an art medium.
Based on my initial ideas and research of artists. I have decided that I will visit Jersey Zoo (Durrel) in order to photograph some of the animals and plants with the intention of having imagery of natural pattern, colour and form which I can use when creating photomontages. Also I would like to have the new butterfly enclosure as the main focus of my photo shoot since this would be a definite source of natural pattern, colour and form as I suggested as a focus; also when doing my initial research I noticed that butterflies were frequently used as part of the work I was looking at and worked really nicely in a chaotic aesthetic.
How will I approach this shoot?
Brief: photograph natural primary source imagery to work with in my photomontages
Camera settings: average to low exposure 400-200 ISO etc…
Location: Jersey zoo (Durrel)
Subjects: Animals (Particularly butterflies and birds) and Plantlife
Lighting: Natural lighting outdoors, camera flash in more shaded/enclosed areas
I’ve decided, moving forward in terms of conceptual ideas and how I can form a successful narrative book from my concept of beauty , I would further research into not just seeing beauty within the world, but the minds philosophy. The way beauty relates to visceral and opulence. It is known for my last project I focused on The sublime, And I believe my knowledge on this topic will too benefit this project. The sublime is something which is beautiful yet also painful, it takes control over any emotion competence to show the powerful emotions someone has within themselves. To be visceral is the relation you yourself have to a deep inward feeling, rather than to just be intelligent. What this means is, being moved by your emotions, in a heartfelt motion, without knowing a reason as to why, with lack of thought involved. Opulence is similar within the fact it is a sense of wealth, greatness and luxuriousness. It gives the of feeling visceral but for the love of richness and Grande. I believe it wold be fascinating If I was to only look at objects and scenarios which I do not known why they are so powerful, but to create a set of images, that combine diamonds and lights in order to recreate these colours of fine art influenced work.
I have spoken previously about combining an emotional response to what I belive is beautiful in my daily life, But perhaps I could not only further this response to what I find visceral, by what items I believe are important to myself in my life, that create opulence for myself. This now is not only a vulnerable exposure of my emotions and my appearance but it is too a look inside as what I value as a person for appearance of myself an others, and material wise. Similarly to the sublime, opulence and visceral are two things which too are very subjective. Because of this there abstract thoughts and personal narrative is very much dependant on my own thinking and resemblance I feel to a object. Not only focusing this project on myself, I could further ask others what they belive is the most beautiful and opulent thing they have ever seen, I could expand on their response by taking a picture of them, and then a side by side comparison of what they believe to be perfection.This not only highlight the subjectivity of our minds, but also the difference of the mind in which people view the world separately. An artist who experimented with this is Sophie Calle – where she makes a portrait of a blind person and ask them to describe beauty. She exhibits the text too and then makes a photograph based on that description. These opposing concept of beauty and imperfections is not only something we see within ourselves, but what others see in themselves too. Not only could this project be about seeing their beauty in the world, an exposure of our own insecurities and emotions, and lastly showing objects which become abstract et beautiful within their luminance. They all have the common denominator of showing how all of these imperfections are still beautiful and part of everyones daily lives.
Once again, this project is dependent on the subjectivity of every piece. The emotion of what someone values or sees as beautiful is very different to that of so one else. The independent initiative, explores ways which different people see love, others and themselves. I believe it would be an interesting experiment to ask others what and who the deem as beautiful, take a portrait of them and display next to them what they value within their life, or even what they value about themselves. Many artists have interpreted hat they fine to be beautiful such as Laura El Tantawy etc. Living on Jersey, An island known for being beautiful through its seascapes and landscapes and artistic fluidity of farms and brightens, many people would say everything over here could be art. I could focus much of my project about peoples favourite placed in jersey, or capturing the natural beauty within jersey. However, I have decided in order to show more abstract themes, I want to use items such as CD’s , discs and mirrors in order to create not only an over-exaggeration of beauty, but also to allow a more abstract colour and luminance to the images. All of these objects when moulded with light create rainbows and more varied coloured explorations, which could be tied to the narrative of finding the beautiful and wonderful within the would. The variation of the capabilities of science and performance. Sir, has also pointed out a past students work who made a fantastic project, focusing on an element called ‘Wabi Sab’ developing films and prints as a response to Kawauchi. This work was a philosophy created to show how simplicity and beauty can be down to the small beauties constantly surrounding us.
I was too shown film in order to show a cinematic experience, it is a film by Terrence Malick: Tree of Life. The film chronicles the origins and meaning of life by way of a middle-aged man’s childhood memories of his family living in 1950s Texas, interspersed with imagery of the origins of the known universe and the inception of life on Earth.As you can see evidently from the trailer linked below, there is such a strong concentration of finding the light and beauty within everyones life, when growing up and the world surrounding themselves. There is a clear fascination with the natural elements of the world used throughout, And I believe My aim for my film should be inspired by this trailer. My film should be a short film where i respond to beauty. Another inspiration could be Rina Abramovich , who creates artistic music and does so in order to form the beautiful. performance art/ video
I think you should consider also what beauty means to you and maybe also do some peer research and ask friends the same question.
I would also like to research and think about beauty much deeper within philosophy and aesthetic theory. Due to already having an understanding of the Sublime which is a kind of beauty that is also terrifying, it already allows a basis to this project. Beauty within this project is so far about expressing the physicality’s of how everything around all of us is beautiful. Doing so I am capturing everything which is beautiful using different concepts of light and colour. However, I was wondering If it were possible to show the beauty within someone from the outside. I want to try and express and emotional state of happiness and love form the outter side of someone, almost a more direct observational portraiture, to relate to a feeling and not just a being of happiness and beauty. I will start off by doing some market research as what it is considered to make people most happy and what people think is most beautiful about themselves, And ways in which i could evoke these emotions and objects through my own work. I will do so by asking many people where I live and my friends, and possibly too looking into past research across the globe, and if what we see as beautiful is dependent on our culture and how much money and wealth we grew up with. This could also be 5 questions in relation to beauty and happiness. These questions will be, How would you describe beauty? What or who is the most beautiful person of thing you have ever seen? What brings you happiness? Where is the one place across the world that brings you the most joy and why? what are you most grateful for? This is not only an insight to the subjectivity once again of the fine art of beauty, but the imagination of each individual mind.
John Anthony Baldessari (born June 17, 1931) is an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lives and works in Santa Monica and Venice, California. Initially a painter, Baldessari began to incorporate texts and photography into his canvases in the mid-1960s. In 1970 he began working in printmaking, film, video, installation, sculpture and photography.
“I guess a lot of it’s just lashing out, because I didn’t know how to be an artist, and all this time spent alone in the dark in these studios and importing my culture and constant questions. I’d say, ‘Well, why is this art? Why isn’t that art?'”
Baldessari first began to move away from gestural painting when he started to work with materials from billboard posters. It prompted him to analyze how these very popular, public means of communication functioned, and it could be argued that his work ever since has done the same. He invariably works with pre-existing images, often arranging them in such a way as to suggest a narrative, yet the various means he employs to distort them – from cropping the images, to collaging them with unrelated images, to blocking out faces and objects with colored dots – all force us to ask how and what the image is communicating.A crucial development in Baldessari’s work was the introduction of text to his paintings. It marked, for him, the realization that images and texts behave in similar ways – both using codes to convey their messages. Text began to disappear from his work in the early 1970s, and since then he has generally relied on collage, but his work has continued to operate with the same understanding of the coded character of images. Typically, he collages together apparently unrelated categories of image or motif, yet the result is to force us to recognize that those images often communicate similar messages.On a visit to the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 1965, Baldessari was struck by the use of unpainted plaster to fill in missing shards of Greek vases. This prompted his interest in how images are effected by having portions removed or blotted out, and he has continued to explore this ever since. Often, the result of his alterations to photographs is to render them generic, suggesting to us that rather than capturing a special moment, or unusual event, photographs often communicate very standardized messages.
Michael Wolf, born 1954, is a German artist and photographer who resides in and works in Hong Kong and Paris. Wolf’s work focuses on the daily life within big cities such as Hong Kong. Wolf one first prize in the Contemporary Issues category of the 2004 World Press Photo competition for his photographs of workers in several types of factories. His career began in 1994 as a photojournalist, when he spent eight years working in Hong Kong for German magazine ‘Stern’. Wolf says that a decline in the magazine industry led to photojournalism assignments becoming “stupid and boring” therefore he decided to work on only fine-art photography projects from 2003.
In Wolf’s series titled “Architecture of Density” he photographs Hong Kong’s tall buildings in order to show them as “abstractions, never-ending repetitions of architectural patterns” – the photographs excluded the sky and the ground and so emphasised the vertical lines and shapes within the buildings. The first book containing images from the series, Hong Kong: Front Door/ Back Door, was published in 2005 – in this book reviews noted how the photographs represented the overpopulation occurring in the city and the massiveness of the human presence.
I intend to take a lot of inspiration from Wolf’s work on ‘Architecture of Density’ as I believe that his work on this project brilliantly demonstrates the similarity within buildings through the patterns that are demonstrated within them as well as bringing light to how different the buildings all are, even though they all often contain very similar shapes and structures. I like Wolf’s work a lot due to the patterns and repetition within the photographs, I feel that they create a very intriguing and abstract appearance to the work as you are initially unsure at what you are looking at. Of course Wolf creates this work using much larger buildings and so can further dramatise these effects of massive repetitive buildings so in my responses to this work it will likely be necessary to use photoshop in order to create more repetition to achieve the same effect as Wolf has. Ultimately Wolf shows the repetition within the world we live in as well as showing the fact that even though there are so many buildings built for the same purpose, they all manage to have their own individualistic features.
A response taking inspiration from Lewis Bush and Michael Wolf
Analysis
In this photograph from Wolf’s “Architecture of Density” he has used the natural lighting from the city of Hong Kong in order to capture a photograph of a repetitive and colourful high-riser apartment block. By using the natural lighting he has been able to capture the natural tonal ranges and contrasts within the building as well as being able to ensure that the image depicts the city of Hong Kong accurately. A deep depth of field would have been used to capture this photograph of the repetitive apartment block face; this is obvious as all aspects of the photograph are in focus in order to ensure that the viewer can look throughout the photograph and spot the continuing patterns. A fairly quick shutter speed, such as 1/80 will have been used to capture the photograph along with a low ISO of close to 100. This is because Wolf will have altered settings of the camera so that the correct amount of light was entering the lens from the city and that the quality of the photograph was as high and as noise-free as possible. This has led to a photograph that is corrected exposed and is visually pleasing to look at.
There is plenty of colour throughout the photograph due to the colourful panels placed across the apartment block; despite this there is not much saturation in the colours as they seem quite bleak and faded. To me this has been done on purpose by Wolf to suggest that this high-density, repetitive type of apartment block is not a sustainable or enjoyable way of living and represents how the population of Hong Kong feel about their living situation – it all seems quite bleak and boring as there is no room for innovation. There is a good level of contrast between the tones within the photograph as there are plenty of black tones within the shadows of balconies contrasting with the lighter tones of the coloured panels – this contrast increases the drama within the photograph to create a more striking composition. Due to the flat nature of the face of the apartment block there is a very 2D feeling to this photograph, but it does not take away from the effectiveness of the photograph as it further demonstrates the repetition and patterns shown throughout the apartment block.
This photograph is part of Wolf’s “Architecture of Density” in which he photographs Hong Kong’s tall buildings in order to show them as “abstractions, never-ending repetitions of architectural patterns”. The project included books published, including Hong Kong: Front Door/ Back Door which allowed Wolf to present the photographs collectively to prompt the reader to compare the structures, shapes and colours within the different Hong Kong high-risers and therefore demonstrated variance and similarity in his work. As a whole this work shows how over-populated and dense cities such as Hong Kong are and gives an insight into their lifestyle and possibly the bleakness of it. This work also possibly raises questions about what the human population are going to do in the future as human population constantly rises and we run out of space in these large cities. Property prices are inevitably going to rise as this unsustainable approach continues and it is just an amount of time until the demand for housing increases drastically past the supply of housing.
David Prentice was an English artist and former art teacher. He was born 1936 in Solihull and he was educated at Moseley Road Secondaey School of Art, Birmingham between 1949 and 1952, and Birmingham School of Art between 1952 and 1957. He died in 2014. In 1964 he was one of the four founding members of Birmingham Ikon Gallery.
His work features in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the Art Institute of Chicargo, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York and the musuem of Modern Art in New York City.
Winter Beacon, 1998 watercolour on paper
Above Llanberis Lake, Watercolour
The image of David Prentice “Above Llanberis Lake” uses a variety of blue and green shades. His work shows strong tone to create the shape of the lake and the valley that surrounds the area, this is supported by his use of shadows and light in his work. His uses the valley to tunnel the viewer’s eye to the horizon of the painting, this is where the main change in colour (from green to the blue, foreground to background) and the change in lighting is the strongest and most noticeable. The viewer’s eye is most drawn towards where the light emerges from the clouds as this is the lightest area of the painting which is followed through the sun rays.
For my second photo shoot I when to the sand dunes to further develop my work inspired by Cody William Smith. These are my best photos from the shoot. I like the idea of using bigger mirrors and incorporating more elements of people into the images. An artist I could use to help develop these ideas is Guillaume Amat.
This is the work I was trying to recreate from Cody William Smith.
Postmodernism was a movement in cultural theory and practice in response of modernism theory and practice, this took place in the mid to late twentieth century. The reaction was against the ideas and values of modernism (Modernism being a style or movement in the arts that aims to depart significantly from classical and traditional forms.) Movements that have come within postmodernism art include: Conceptual art, installation art, digital art, performance art, Intermedia and Multi-media art.
Here are some examples of photographic, sculptural, installation and design work from the postmodernism movement…
Andy Warhol’s Marilyn MonroeBarbara Kruger’s Believe Anything
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