The exhibition at Mai 36 Galerie presents a new series of works by American artist John Baldessari, who has been represented by the gallery since 1991. The new works reprise combinations of text and image, and melds the motif of various windmills and a wind farm with a textual field in contrasting color, referring on Miguel de Cervantes’ novel Don Quijote.
Baldessari, who will celebrate his 87th birthday in June, explores the relationship between image and language by deploying writing as a means of (visual) expression. This approach brings together two kinds of communication within a single work and addresses the complex relationship between two fundamentally different forms of human articulation.
While teaching at the California Institute of the Arts, Baldessari influenced generations of artists. In the early 1970s, he founded and led the Post Studio seminar, with his now legendary Post Studio Art Class going on to foster such famous names as David Salle, James Welling, Matt Mullican, Troy Brauntuch and many more besides.