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Lot Essay
Uniting disparate panels, the present forms part of John Baldessari’s Elbow Series, which subverts traditional pictorial language through its wry juxtaposition of images. Baldessari stated that the action of uniting elements of diverse origin and character to draw out their associative potential, as shown in Elbow Series – EMU, is akin to the experience of being ‘in an airplane cabin and overhear[ing] two conversations, one says something and the other says something else. I could not have thought up those phrases on my own and I respond to it by connecting one to the other, taking both out of their own context and, and by making them a part of my imagination’ (J. Baldessari, quoted in C. van Bruggen, John Baldessari, New York 1990, p. 19). Throughout his career, the artist has used developing technologies and progressive artistic theory to produce a wide range of engaging works of art, of which this piece is a compelling example that unites traditional paint on canvas with photography, creating a hybrid form.
Through the aesthetic of his thoughtfully devised arrangements, tension is created through the physical and psychological distance between the individual elements. Illustrating Baldessari’s adroitness as a formalist, in the Elbow Series, we see three panels placed in dialectical combinations of text/image and image/image. One which shows a visual extract of a human face from a Goya painting, altered by layers of bright acrylic paint, another is black panel featuring the word ‘EMU’ in Baldessari’s distinctive script and the third features photograph showing a cropped image of a cactus. The three panels have been arranged in a square, leaving a void in the final quarter to be filled by the viewer – a strongly conceptual move which aims to unite the artist and the audience on a zero ground as they contemplate work as a whole. Baldessari prompts us to question: what do these elements have in common? Each individual is free to make their own associations and thus to participate fully in the work of art itself.
By challenging the notion of looking and interpreting, Baldessari opened up a new way of thinking about art and its purpose, provoked by his own dismay with the established concept of art as a stand alone image on the wall. ‘Something I flirt with a lot that is very difficult for me - emotionally difficult - is working with a single image in a single frame … I am interested in when two images abut each other. It’s like when two worlds collide and new word in some new meaning comes out of it’ (J. Baldessari, in J. Baldessari, A. Goldstein, and C. Williams, ‘Things We Sweep Under the Rug,’ in John Baldessari: Life’s Balance, Works 1984-2004, P. Pakesch, Cologne 2005, p. 88). In Elbow Series – EMU, we see a classic example of Baldessari’s pioneering approach to artistic creation and interpretation in a visually stimulating work.
Through the aesthetic of his thoughtfully devised arrangements, tension is created through the physical and psychological distance between the individual elements. Illustrating Baldessari’s adroitness as a formalist, in the Elbow Series, we see three panels placed in dialectical combinations of text/image and image/image. One which shows a visual extract of a human face from a Goya painting, altered by layers of bright acrylic paint, another is black panel featuring the word ‘EMU’ in Baldessari’s distinctive script and the third features photograph showing a cropped image of a cactus. The three panels have been arranged in a square, leaving a void in the final quarter to be filled by the viewer – a strongly conceptual move which aims to unite the artist and the audience on a zero ground as they contemplate work as a whole. Baldessari prompts us to question: what do these elements have in common? Each individual is free to make their own associations and thus to participate fully in the work of art itself.
By challenging the notion of looking and interpreting, Baldessari opened up a new way of thinking about art and its purpose, provoked by his own dismay with the established concept of art as a stand alone image on the wall. ‘Something I flirt with a lot that is very difficult for me - emotionally difficult - is working with a single image in a single frame … I am interested in when two images abut each other. It’s like when two worlds collide and new word in some new meaning comes out of it’ (J. Baldessari, in J. Baldessari, A. Goldstein, and C. Williams, ‘Things We Sweep Under the Rug,’ in John Baldessari: Life’s Balance, Works 1984-2004, P. Pakesch, Cologne 2005, p. 88). In Elbow Series – EMU, we see a classic example of Baldessari’s pioneering approach to artistic creation and interpretation in a visually stimulating work.