In the current exhibition three-dimensionality and the relationship with space and color play ever-important roles. ‘Raised Eyebrows/ Furrowed Foreheads’ continues the artist’s exploration of human identity through the fragmentation of parts of the body. As in prior series ‘Noses & Ears, Etc,’ or Arms and Legs (Specif. Elbows and Knees), Etc...
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In the current exhibition three-dimensionality and the relationship with space and color play ever-important roles. ‘Raised Eyebrows/ Furrowed Foreheads’ continues the artist’s exploration of human identity through the fragmentation of parts of the body. As in prior series ‘Noses & Ears, Etc,’ or Arms and Legs (Specif. Elbows and Knees), Etc’, paintings that the artist did in the fifties are the source. At the time these works were a result of Baldessari’s immersion in thinking about totality— what was a part and what was a whole—which continues to be a central concern in his work. Alongside this concentration is his ongoing interest in the relief of motif and ground; the segment as visual syntax; the unexpected hybrid; the merging of photography, painting, and sculpture.
Raised Eyebrows/ Furrowed Foreheads highlights not only the animated dialogue in which painting and photography have long and successfully been engaged in Baldessari’s work, but also the tradition in his work of ‘fragmenting single motifs or areas of a canvas or picture to defy narrative logic and standard interpretation’ …’Hints and omissions were among Baldessari’s key strategies even in his early years’ (Rainer Fuchs). Baldessari says, ‘I have an earlier work called ‘What to Put in What to Leave Out’. It’s about deprivation, not giving you what you want and forcing you to think about what is there – what you want to be there is not there and something else is there.’ (2006, John Baldessari catalogue, Marian Goodman Gallery, NY) The artist sees the subject of this series, the isolated and ironic portrayal of foreheads, eyes, and eyebrows as particularly timely, saying ‘Aren’t we all worried? These works may be viewed as depicting that condition.’ – JB
John Baldessari has been an innovative force in contemporary art redefining its parameters to include its role as a visual evocation of language, and leading the way in bringing photography to the forefront of contemporary art. Over five decades of conceptual practice he has embraced painting, photography, film, video, books, prints, objects and installation. His use of appropriation, alteration, and montage to disrupt a narrative or to construct an entirely new meaning out of recombined fragments has been utilized in disparate ways in different bodies of works spanning his career, from early text paintings, to conceptual works and found pictures; from erased identity works of the 1980s and 90s to more recent series in the past five years in which he investigates new issues of painting.
