Truth is Violently Opposed Before It is Accepted as Self Evident
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a German philosopher known for his philosophical clarity. He has made one of the most valuable observations on the shifting of human views on truth as he stated that all truth goes through three steps:
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Finally, it is accepted as self-evident
cont. JOHN BALDESSARI
Throwing three balls in the air to get a straight line (best of thirty six attempts)(1973); why do I like this so much, something to do with obsessive compulsive attempts at order.
Alignment Series: Palm Tree (with girl)(1975), There is also something very pleasing about this for the same reasons.
Thaumatrope Series: Two Gangsters (one with leather suit) (1975), here he takes the two pictures apart showing how the pictures can be read differently.
Horizontal Men (1984). This is the last of my favourites. By this time he had delved more into pop art and my interest waned a bit.
cont. JOHN BALDESSARI
My sons favourite piece was The backs of all the trucks passed while driving from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, California, Sunday, 20 January 1963 (1963). I like it too and remember seeing a video remake of the idea by someone a few years ago, where they had video’d every car or truck that they had driven up behind, I seem to remember some kids pulling faces – it was quite good. So now I know where the idea came from.
There are many works that I like, a few of my favourites are:
Tips for artists who want to sell (1966-68), he says that paintings with Bulls and Roosters sell. At some point I might try it, but I’ll have to add ‘after John Baldessari’ which might influence the selling potential for the better and therefore would not be a true indication. I could do the cows and hens that collect dust too and compare my sales;
A painting that is its own documentation (1966-68); This gives me an idea for one of my unresolved works.
Wrong (1966-68) this is my favourite work of the show and I bought a postcard, I also had fun explaining it to my son John….. Baldessari had been looking at art text books explaining the right and the wrong way to compose a picture, He said he often preferred the wrong way;
California Map Project part 1: California (1969) here he went to the place that the letters of California were written on the map, once there he drew the letter in the ground;
Aligning: Balls (1972) this is a series of photographs showing balls thrown into the air, photos are aligned along the level of the balls;
Floating: Color (1972) here he threw large coloured sheets out of a window;
Portrait: Artist’s identity hidden with various hats (1974), My son made me laugh when he said that he hadn’t hidden very well;
JOHN BALDESSARI
Serendipity took me to see John Baldessari at the weekend at Tate Modern. It began on Friday afternoon when I was 20 minutes early to collect my children from the child minder, due to the traffic being lighter than usual. I decided to do some reading in the car whist I waited, unfortunately (I felt at the time, but fortunately in hindsight) I left my lights on. I had some trouble getting a jump start as my leads didn’t seem to be working, anyway an hour later, third time lucky, with a new set of leads I made it home. Saturday morning rushing to my sons ice skating lesson again the car wouldn’t start, we managed to get a bus and made the lesson thankfully. During the lesson I hatched a plan to drive to town the following day to see a gallery to give the car a good charge after another jump. Looking through time out I couldn’t really see anything I fancied, I usually look for a free show being a bit skint. However finally ‘LAST CHANCE John Baldessari’ did enter my radar ‘This chronological survey highlights Baldessari’s influence not only on the general development of conceptual art but also on later generations of artists. It’s the work from the 70’s and 80’s that best demonstrates his investigative games and processes; ten photos of the artist blowing cigar smoke to try to imitate images of clouds………..or shots of balls thrown in the air, displayed so that the balls are in horizontal alignment. All are deceptively simple but revealing about how we view, order and understand the world’. “This is the one” I said to my partner, it was a paying show but I thought needs must, and I’m so glad I did, it was worth the hour in the cold trying to jump start my car, the cold run to the bus for the ice skating lession and of course the price.
I had John (my nearly six year old son) with me in the show, and did he ask a lot of questions….. it was actually quite useful though, having him there, as I had to concentrate and read all the blurb so I could explain things properly. I loved the show, I know a fair amount about conceptual art but to my shame didn’t really know much of John Baldessari’s work, at one point a man that looked just like him walked very quickly through the show, having a quick look here and there, the more I looked at him the quicker he walked, I wonder if it was him.
I’ve spent the last ten years making work inspired by the sort of premise of his early work, so to see the show was very grounding for me as during the first term of my MA at Wimbledon I’ve been experimenting and working in a different way and might well have lost myself. The intro from time out about his work ‘All are deceptively simple but revealing about how we view, order and understand the world’ could be something that I use to describe my work (i’ll pilfer it). I find it very hard to write or talk about my work, I keep changing my mind as things move on. My statement is usually a conjoining of other peoples quotes and statements that seem to ring true for me too. I wonder what on earth I will write for my dissertation – any suggestions?
I am excited because I have finished my first piece of work since my sketchbook exercise.
