John Baldessari
The Prima Facie Series

Since the mid-1960s, John Baldessari has been considered one of the most influential artists in the United States. The American artist is often described in literature as the founder of conceptual art and the father of postmodernism. John Baldessari first gained recognition in the 1960s when he combined images from everyday life with the use of language. Stemming from conceptual art, Baldessari created a unique body of work that quickly left its mark on postmodern art. In contrast to most American artists who gravitated towards New York, Baldessari continued to reside in Los Angeles. This allows his work to be interpreted as a personal approach to the West Coast glamour.

Under the influence of advertising and the film industry, the artist merged image and text in his work. He arranged photos and film images, placed them side by side, manipulated them, and combined them with words. The result of photomontage and language often plays into the suggested narrative associations, contributing to a deeper layer of meaning. The layered and often humorous compositions carry various connotations and demonstrate the relative nature of ‘meaning.’ Throughout his long career, John Baldessari continued to play and critique popular culture. The scale and visual impact of his work have only increased.

The exhibition The Prima Facie Series at MDD provides an overview of his most recent production. The Prima Facie series consists of 5 parts. Each part was presented in a different gallery, showcasing new work building upon the previous one. The series began in 2005 in Los Angeles, continued in Zurich, Madrid, Brussels, and concluded in London in June 2006. Now that the series is complete, the artist wants to bring together a selection for the first time. By presenting them in a museum context, the series detaches from the private sphere of the gallery circuit.

The Latin expression, Prima Facie, means ‘at first sight.’ Simultaneously, it is also a legal term referring to an abundance of evidence. In these works, Baldessari reunites words and images. He starts with an emotionally charged facial expression from a film image and places an appropriate word next to it. The relationship between word and image seems relatively straightforward at first glance. A woman is smiling. She is ‘happy.’ But is that the case? The fact that all images are from films indicates that they are actors. This is the interplay between fiction and reality that John Baldessari masterfully engages with the audience.