Mondays can be dreary things, so let's start the week in a colourful way getting inspired by one of the most influential American artists, John Baldessari (1931-2020).
Working in a variety of media including sculpture, printmaking, photography, painting, film, performance, installation and books, Baldessari is well-known for his photographs with faces erased by coloured dots.
John Baldessari's works collectively entitled "Eight Colorful Inside Jobs" (Green, Orange, Red, Purple, Magenta, Blue, Yellow and Brown) are the result of a collaboration with historical printmaker and publisher (but also medium) Mixografía® that lasted for 20 years, but Mixografia's three-dimensional printing technique has been developed and perfected over the course of 50 years.
Baldessari employed the Mixografia printing technique to explore notions of texture, volume and subject. Inspired by Giorgio Morandi, the "Eight Colorful Inside Jobs" could be considered as geometrical still lifes.
Eight geometrical shapes are printed in a basic bold colour with visible brush strokes; on the bottom of the print, there is the name of the colour of each shape.
What makes them extraordinary is the three-dimensional quality of the print with colours highlighting certain areas and obscuring other sections, reshifting the viewers' attention to the power of perspective and leaving them wondering if they may be looking at a painting or at a paper sculpture.
There's therefore a new visual narrative in these works as geometries are explored as fantastically sculptural shapes that can be used in a simply decorative way to please our eyes or in a more conceptual way, to start a conversation about art, colours and shapes in space.
The prints could also be interpreted in a humorous Pop Art key, with geometrical shapes re-contextualised from their usual field and employed in art with a different purpose and message, combined with vibrant colours.
The "Eight Colorful Inside Jobs" are on disaply at Sotheby's Palm Beach as part of the Selected Works by John Baldessari and Ed Ruscha selling exhibition (until 14th November 2021), showcasing two pioneers of the West Coast art scene. All works exhibited are published by Mixografía®.
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