Remembering John Baldessari (born in 1931, died January 2, 2020

I first remember noticing his work in a LACMA show Pure Beauty. I didn’t connect emotionally, it seemed gimmicky (and I was probably rushed, a bad habit).

I saw his Cremation Project piece as part of a broader show—something about destruction I think—at the Hirshhorn Gallery in Washington DC in 2013. (The Hirshhorn is the the Smithsonian museum dedicated to modern art.) I loved the idea, I loved the execution, I loved the documentation.

In 1970 Baldessari assembled those of his paintings in his possession— the work he’d made since leaving college and up to 1966—and destroyed them. With the help of assistants (and soberly documenting each step) he wrecked the canvases and then had the remains cremated. It’s a great story.

Photos documenting the destruction and cremation of the art.

The piece includes photographs, an affidavit published in the local newspaper, the San Diego Union (coincidentally my hometown paper), cookies he made from some of the ashes, and a recipe for the cookies which he dubbed “Corpus Wafers”. All that remained of his body of work. Beautiful allusion.

Yellowed newspaper and recipe card. Note, these are really bad photos of the cookies from whatever generation iPhone I had at the time in the really awful lighting.

The Hirshhorn can really feel like a Brutalist bunker sometimes.

The cookies, which he called “Corpus Wafers”.

I admire the commitment, the bravery, the whimsy of this piece and it turned me into a John Baldessari fan. You can see more of his work at his website here.