John Baldessari Interview for Dazed Digital
Watch my Dazed Digital interview with John Baldessari below. Interview Freire Barnes. Film By Sophie Smith
Even now at 78, John Baldessari is embarking on new terrain working with interactive installations and producing ‘tableau vivant’s’. I spoke with him at his Tate Modern retrospective Pure Beauty about signature styles, stereotypes and LA.
Referred to as one of the founders of Conceptual Art, and distinctly one of the most influential artists of the last 50 years he performed the ultimate act in 1970 when he burnt the majority of his work (paintings) in ‘The Cremation Project’, which marked an end and starting point to the rest of his career.
Juxtaposing seemingly incongruous imagery with text, Baldessari confronts the viewer to question preconceptions and meaning but not to forget to have a laugh while they’re pondering. Braking from the confines of the traditional rectangular format of both canvas and photograph, he’s played with the composition of his work for the past 3 decades employing a variety of unconventional shapes and configurations. He omits information in his photomontages by fracturing his found imagery or masking areas with colourful circular interventions so you’re always left wondering and very aware that yet again he is toying with you.
