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Art is a coded projection. All great art is myth. In contemplating this new solo show of 18 stunning, mixed media conceptual photography works by the ever-imaginative, ever-growing John Baldessari, it is possible to ask questions of the works that lesser artists might also try, and fail, to answer in theirs. Baldessari himself doesn’t try to analyze the meaning of his works, let alone to illustrate feeble ratiocinations; once he agrees with his subconscious that an idea should be made manifest, however, its assertions are discernable to a forensic-minded viewer. When he does speak about his work, he discusses the form and technique: they are black and white photographs, a few elements of which he’s layered over with bright, flat color and jig-sawed low relief. |
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All Great Art is Myth: John Baldessari at Marian Goodman – Barbara Rosenthal
Art is a coded projection. All great art is myth. In contemplating this new solo show of 18 stunning, mixed media conceptual photography works by the ever-imaginative, ever-growing John Baldessari, it is possible to ask questions of the works that lesser artists might also try, and fail, to answer in theirs. Baldessari himself doesn’t try to analyze the meaning of his works, let alone to illustrate feeble ratiocinations; once he agrees with his subconscious that an idea should be made manifest, however, its assertions are discernable to a forensic-minded viewer.
When he does speak about his work, he discusses the form and technique: they are black and white photographs, a few elements of which he’s layered over with bright, flat color and jig-sawed low relief. His striking form doesn’t devour his content (or visa versa), yet when he mentions subject matter, which this Californian almost always appropriates from Hollywood films, he poses a curious dichotomy: “To represent people only by an ear and/or nose became for me another way of reducing human identity to a minimum.”
Yes, the flat shapes filled with primary and secondary colors are devoid of any bumps, wrinkles, pores or hairs that might give them a discernable personality, yet the Baldessari’s gallerist notes that his work produces “a visual evocation of language.” The language here seems to be an implied narrative, complete with implied dialogue. But, because the characters have been deliberately made indistinguishable by their graphic simplification, they must all be evocations of the artist’s personality. John Baldessari is no longer hiding in his “erased identity and overpainted ‘dot’ works of the 90s.” Everything that these pictures reveal, they tell of him as an art maker, not just a being and, as a matter of fact, as the art maker of these pictures in particular.
The organization of the show and relationship between the works is significant, too. In the main gallery, the first work on the left is of four jailed men in cowboy hats, one holding the bars, as if the artist is communicating, “Let me out; there is more of me than can be contained any longer.” In every picture, “he” is loosely holding something: fish, pillow, net, collie, skull, hobbyhorse. These things, all of which allude to humanness but aren’t human, could drop or get away, but they don’t, not because they’re being forcefully restrained—they are loosely held but are quiescent on their own; so Baldessari signals that he’s gently letting go.
But it’s not so easy for him. In the last room, there are risks and dangers—a gun in the face, a table fallen over a body discovered by another self, hands up while an arm reaches for waist or crotch, twice “he” must be held at gunpoint. In the last two pictures, “he” is finally about to throw the object (a rock) to the ground, and in the very last work, “he” raises his arms as if to say, “I surrender.” Baldessari is surrendering to the challenge of the future, chucking whatever he thinks might have calcified from his past. In my review of this artist’s 2004 show at the same gallery, I said he was both visceral and cool. In this show, now, John Baldessari is smoldering hot!
