Lamp, 1998

John Baldessari is an American visionary artist. He began as a painter and then began to bring texts and photography into his work. He has also worked in printmaking, installation, sculpture, film, video and photography. John Baldessari has created thousands of pieces that show images with associative power of words. He has been featured in more than 200 solo exhibitions in the United States and Europe. John Baldessari's earlier works were merely words painted on canvas. His most famous "text" painting was the phrase, "Suppose it is true after all? WHAT THEN?" This phrase was painted on a heavily soiled canvas and was personally disappointing to him. He decided since the finished work did not have the form or method to go with the language he had meant to display; he would not use his hand to create the words, but a more commercial lifeless style. He then employed the use of sign painters to physically create the letters in an un-ornamental font. John's intent and statement with his art was to present it as hollow and ridiculous. This form of John Baldessari’s art was destroyed by himself and five friends when they burnt all of the paintings. The ashes were then placed into an urn in the form of cookies. John Baldessari then began to blend photographic material by taking them apart and putting them out of context into a new form and often added words to them. One of his images that has been said to violate basic rules on snapshot composition shows him standing in front of a palm tree. Baldessari is positioned to make it appear as though the tree is growing from his head. Another of his images called, California Map Project creates physical forms to resemble letters in California and placed where they would appear on a printed map. Many of his work involve pointing as he tells the viewer what to look at and how to make selections and compare.