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John Baldessari (American, b.1931)
LOT ID: 69992
Two Bowlers (with Questioning Person), 1994

Lithograph, Serigraph / Screenprint, 2-panel, 18 color lithograph/screenprint
48 х 77.5 in. cm.
Signed, stamped, inscribed, and numbered
Edition 29/43
Foundry/Publisher Gemini G.E.L., pub.
Lot description
Each panel measures 48 x 36 1/2”; overall 48 x 77 1/2”

John Baldessari was born in National City, California in 1931. He received a BA (1953) and MA (1957) from San Diego State College, continuing his studies at Otis Art Institute (1957–59) and Chouinard Art Institute. Synthesizing photomontage, painting, and language, Baldessari's deadpan visual juxtapositions equate images with words and illuminate, confound, and challenge meaning. He upends commonly held expectations of how images function, often by drawing the viewer's attention to minor details, absences, or the spaces between things. By placing colorful dots over faces, obscuring portions of scenes, or juxtaposing stock photographs with quixotic phrases, he injects humor and dissonance into vernacular imagery. For most of his career John Baldessari has also been a teacher. While some of the strategies he deploys in his work—experimentation, rule-based systems, and working within and against arbitrarily imposed limits to find new solutions to problems—share similarities with pedagogical methods, they are also intrinsic to his particular world view and philosophy.
Baldessari has received several honorary doctorates, the most recent from the National University of Ireland, Burren College of Art (2006). He has participated in Documenta (1982, 1978); the Venice Biennale (2003, 1997); and seven Whitney Biennials, most recently in 2008. His work has been shown in more than 120 solo exhibitions and 300 group exhibitions. A major retrospective will appear at the Tate Modern, London; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2009–10. John Baldessari was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2007. He lives and works in Santa Monica, California.[pbs]
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Two Bowlers (with Questioning Person) by John Baldessari
  • Two Bowlers (with Questioning Person) by John Baldessari
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    screenprint
    (H 30.1, W 23.6) in.
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    Sunday, December 11, 2011
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  • John Baldessari

    Two bowlers (With questioning person) (from A French horn plater, a square blue moon and other subjects series) (on 2 sheets)
    color lithograph and screenprint
    (H 48.0, W 36.5) in.
    (121.9 x 92.7) cm.
    Ed. 18/43
    Sold for: US$6,250
    Sunday, November 21, 2010
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