John Baldessari

Sonnabend Gallery, New York
Marian Goodman Gallery, New York
Private collection, Europe 

Towards the end of the 1960's, John Baldessari broke with the prevailing artistic conventions by melding, through a unique conceptual approach, photography and painting. Inspired by his surroundings, the artist photographed places reminiscent of the subjects of his paintings. These photos subsequently became source material for later paintings; which in turn, inspired more photographs. Baldessari would accent these compositions with various texts culled from billboard fragments. This organic process of conceptual development radically altered the investigation of traditional categories of art making throughout the 1970s.

Later, the artist altered his artistic method as text became somewhat extraneous.  As Tracey Bashkoff notes, "Once Baldessari recognized that text was commonly accepted in art, he felt that the 'battle had been won,' but using photographs with an eye toward their critical meaning still held possibilities because of the pervasiveness of photographic imagery in society." (Exh. Cat., Berlin, Deutsche Guggenheim, John Baldessari: Somewhere Between Almost Right And Not Quite (With Orange), p. 23)

Bashkoff continues, "By the mid-1980s Baldessari adopted the technique of concealing a face by placing a colored dot over it... the images were instaneously rendered powerless... [and] recognizable people were converted to anonymous 'types'. This technique simultaneously flattened the image and emphasized the illusion of the scene.  By obscuring a face... Baldessari was able to erase individuality and transform a specific person into a secure object. "(ibid. p. 24-25) Path (With Ducks [One Red] and a Knight) is a perfect example of such a transformation.