Staff Favorites: "Black Dice" by John Baldessari

 
John Baldessari, Black Dice, 1982 (as installed at Blue Sky), from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his Family Foundation.

John Baldessari, Black Dice, 1982 (as installed at Blue Sky), from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his Family Foundation.

While Blue Sky is temporarily closed to the public, members of our staff will be sharing some of their favorite pieces by John Baldessari as a way to provide more virtual access to our current exhibition, Master of Appropriation. Exhibitions Manager Zemie Barr begins this initiative with her favorite piece on view, Black Dice:

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John Baldessari’s Black Dice from 1982 is his first experimentation with etching and aquatint, and unlike many of his other works in the Blue Sky show, it contains a great deal of the artist’s direct mark-making on the etching plates used to make the portfolio. This is why I’m drawn to this piece: it is probably the most abstracted and painterly work on view, yet photography still plays an important role.

Baldessari began by creating nine photo etchings using a film still from the 1948 film Black Dice (originally released as No Orchids for Miss Blandish in the UK and based on the risqué crime novel of that same name). Installed in a three-by-three grid to reference the original image, each print contains a recognizable element from the photograph, such as a lamp or telephone, yet the artist’s additional gestures made with various etching techniques work to disorient the viewer. The faces from the original film still are also left out of the etchings, a choice that seems to be a precursor to Baldessari’s use of colorful dots to cover faces. All of these interventions discourage attaching narrative or emotional content to the work, and instead move the focus to visual play.

Some additional links for further investigation:

  • Here is a link to the portfolio on MoMA’s website, where you can see all nine prints individually and up-close.

  • I have not been able to find a way to view the film No Orchids for Miss Blandish online (and perhaps this is besides the point of the piece), but this trailer for the film may be sufficient to understand the gist of the plot and style of the film.

  • In this short video, Baldessari talks about why he recycles images. Bonus: you can even watch him sift through some of his found image collection:

 
Blue Sky, Oregon Center for the Photographic Artsstaff favorites