The Cremation Project of 1970 marked a definitive break in the career of John Baldessari, who burned his paintings created between 1953 and 1966 to emphasize the connection between artistic practice and the human life cycle. By baking the resulting ashes into cookies and displaying them in an urn, he redirected his focus toward conceptual experimentation.
Formative Years and Academic Training
Born in 1931 in National City, California, Baldessari was the son of a Danish nurse and an Italian salvage dealer. He attended Sweetwater High School before pursuing extensive higher education. He earned a BA from San Diego State College in 1953 and an MA from the same institution in 1957. Between those degrees, he studied at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, Los Angeles. His training concluded with studies at the Otis Art Institute and the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles.
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By 1966, Baldessari transitioned from traditional painting to works incorporating text and photography. Seeking to eliminate personal expression, he hired sign painters to apply unornamented black fonts to his canvases. Pieces such as his 1967 work, A Two-Dimensional Surface Without Any Articulation Is A Dead Experience, rejected subjective hand-painting in favor of a detached, industrial aesthetic. He also explored art theory through Painting for Kubler, which referenced the writings of art historian George Kubler.
Teaching and Influential Pedagogy
Baldessari taught within the San Diego school system starting in 1959. In 1968, he joined the originating faculty of the University of California, San Diego, at the invitation of Paul Brach. He later moved to Santa Monica and became a faculty member at CalArts, where he led the Post Studio class. This program encouraged students to explore art beyond traditional medium-specificity. He concluded his teaching career at UCLA, where he remained until 2008, influencing artists such as Elliott Hundley and Analia Saban.
Visual Juxtaposition and Later Series
His later work, characterized by the appropriation of film stills and photography, investigated the relationship between images and language. In his Wrong series, he intentionally violated standard photographic composition rules. His Binary Code Series used alternating photographs to represent digital data. Later, in the 2012 Double Bill series, he paired the styles of different artists on single canvases, adding his own painted interventions. Baldessari was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Fast facts
- Born: 1931, National City, California
- Died: 2020, Los Angeles and Venice, California
- Primary Fields: Painting, Photography, Sculpture, Installation
- Guggenheim Fellowship: 1986
- Spectrum – Internationaler Preis für Fotografie: 1999
- Goslarer Kaiserring: 2012
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences: 2004
Questions readers ask
What happened to Baldessari's early paintings?
In 1970, he destroyed all paintings he created between 1953 and 1966 in a ritualized event known as The Cremation Project, eventually incorporating the ashes into cookies.
Where did Baldessari teach?
He taught at the University of California, San Diego, CalArts, and UCLA, retiring from the latter in 2008.
Achievements
- Movement: contemporary art