HAPPY BALDESSARI PORTRAIT MONDAY!

We love the playful artwork of conceptual art legend John Baldessari, who uses humour and irony in his deceptively simple image and/or text based works. Whether he's silk screening descriptive terminology used for describing art, or placing brightly coloured dots over people's faces in photographs, he has inspired a generation of artists and art lovers to make art that is intellectual, but also fun to look at.

These two images demonstrate his later-career, as most of his early works have been destroyed.  In 1970, Baldessari and a few of his friends decided to burn all their paintings from 1953-1966, creating a new work entitled   The Cremation Project.  They placed the ashes into urns, and even paired them with commemorative gold plaques stating their date of "birth" and "death".

 Here is a hilarious and informative video on Baldessari, just click this link !