John Baldessari

Pure Beauty

Tate Modern 13 October 2009  –  10 January 2010

Explore:

• Interview
• Room 1
• Room 2
• Room 3
• Room 4
• Room 5
• Room 6
• Room 7
• Room 8
• Room 9
• Room 10
• Room 11
• Room 12
• Room 13

Room 9

Baldessari is a master at creating tension, simply by altering images slightly or introducing incongruous elements. A drop of blood on a woman’s face alongside a group of pelicans creates ominous overtones, as if the pelicans are to blame; a horizontal tree replete with fox interrupts a moment between a man and a woman, separating them irreconcilably; a single kiss is surrounded by guns and scenes of panic. Another work combines numerous images of shadows, the quintessential clue that something critical, and usually violent, is about to take place in a movie.

The power of suggestion is present in all of these works, including Horizontal Men, in which images of living and dead men are stacked on top of each other to suggest that even the walking men towards the bottom of the composition are lifeless. Turned on their side, their journeys are halted, and they become simply another body in the pile.