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Distributed for Hirmer Publishers

John Baldessari

The Städel Paintings

With Essays by J. Baumann, M. Engler, and D. Salle

Distributed for Hirmer Publishers

John Baldessari

The Städel Paintings

With Essays by J. Baumann, M. Engler, and D. Salle
In 1970, California-based conceptual artist John Baldessari (b. 1931) destroyed all the paintings he’d produced from 1953 to 1966, paving the way for an independent and unmistakable pictorial style that lay between painting and photography, text and image. The last member of the American postwar avant-garde, Baldessari is known for creating collages featuring found photography and appropriated images—often pieced together to suggest a narrative or riddle, but typically in a way that reveals the similar messages communicated by seemingly unrelated images.
           
His most recent series of large collages, created for an exhibition at the Städel Museum Frankfurt in Germany, draw on masterpieces from Lucas Cranach the Elder to Maria Lassnig at the Städel. This publication reproduces these collages, while accompanying essays and an interview with John Baldessari and Philipp Kaiser add depth to the pieces. The book explores how Baldessari used texts and photographs to uncover a multifaceted opposition and juxtaposition of old and new art. It also examines the ways that Baldessari employs classic modernist pictorial strategies—including montage and the integration of everyday elements—in order to confront the artistic practices of the postwar avant-gardes, such as discourses on consumerism and the media. As he intertwines media and materials and combines entirely distinct groups of artistic subjects, the unambiguousness of the pictorial language gives way to a multilayered readability.
           
Lavishly produced and illustrated with seventy color images, John Baldessari offers an early look at the latest works by one of today’s most important conceptual artists.

200 pages | 70 color plates | 11 x 11 | © 2015

Art: American Art


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Reviews

“To mark the Städel Museum’s bicentennial, . . . California conceptual artist John Baldessari has produced a new series of works based on masterpieces owned by the museum. . . . The large-scale collages . . . pit text against image, . . . with more than a hint of sardonic humor.”

ArtNews, on the exhibition

“Taking these works as his point of departure, the artist explores the relationship not only between painting and photography, but also that between image and language. . . . The result is a suspenseful and complex consonance/dissonance that queries old and new art alike and breaks with established patterns of perception.”

e-flux, on the exhibition

“More than four decades after burning his work, the West Coast conceptualist has brought his deadpan humour to bear on one of Germany’s leading historical art collections."

Art Newspaper, on the exhibition

Table of Contents

Vorwort
Max Holen
 
Von Konzeptkunst und Metaphern
Malerei nach dem Ende der Malerei
Martin Engler
 
The Städel Paintings
 
,,Make It a Better Painting‘‘
John Baldessari im Gespräch
mit Philipp Kaiser
 
John Baldessaris Movie Scripts/ Art Series
David Salle
 
The State of the Art World
Zur lnstitutionskritik in John
Baldessaris Movie Scripts/
Art Series
Jana Baumann
 
Abbildungen
 
Anhang
 
The Städel Paintings
Abbildungen
Biografie
Bibliografie
Autoren
Impressum
 
Foreword
Max Hollein
 
On Concept Art and Metaphors
Painting after the End of Painting
Martin Engler
 
The Städel Paintings
"Make lt a Better Painting"
John Baldessar in Conversation
with Philipp Kaiser
 
John Baldessari's Movie Scripts/
Art Series
David Salle
 
The State of the Art World
On the Institutional Critique in
John Baldessari's Movie Scripts/
Art Series
Jana Baumann
 
Illustrations
 
Appendix
The Städel Paintings
Illustrations
Biography
Bibliography
Authors
Colophon
 
 

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