John Baldessari
Brain/Cloud (with Seascape and Palm Tree), 2011
1250 Prospect Street
In Brain/Cloud, John Baldessari has combined a palm tree with a brain/cloud, calling attention to the way we often see images when we look at clouds. Adjacent to the Pacific Ocean, the artwork invites the viewer to compare and contrast the artist's composition against the natural shoreline.
“A brain can look like a cloud if you manipulate it in the right way. We see things in clouds. It looks like it’s hovering almost from outer space. I like banal images and I can’t think of anything more banal than a palm tree and an ocean."
John Baldessari is a conceptual artist whose work questions how we perceive and interpret the world around us. He was born in 1931 in National City, California. He attended San Diego State University and did post-graduate work at Otis Art Institute, Chouinard Art Institute, and the University of California at Berkeley. He has received honorary degrees from the National University of Ireland, San Diego State University, Otis Art Institute, Parsons School of Design, and California College of the Arts. Over the course of his career, he has taught at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, and the University of California, Los Angeles. Since 1973, he has been using photography as a way to create collaged compositions that explore the relationships between images, many of which derive from film, advertising, and popular culture.
Baldessari's artwork has been featured in more than 200 solo exhibitions and in over 1,000 group exhibitions nationally and internationally. A major retrospective of his work was organized by Tate Modern that subsequently traveled to Museu d’Art Contemporani, Barcelona; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. His awards and honors include a National Medal of Arts Award, an award from the International Print Center New York, the Americans for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Biennale di Venezia Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement. Baldessari lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
40' x 36' 8"
Wall Sponsor: Gift of J and the boys in loving memory of J. Todd Figi
Photos by Philipp Scholz Rittermann