BOOK: John Baldessari, Ahmedabad 1992, Sprüth Magers Gallery

Throughout John Baldessari’s prolific and impactful career, he consistently examined and defied the expectations that influence our perception of art. His unique methodology in the realms of painting, photography, source materials, and text redefined and challenged conventional art historical limitations, making him a pioneer of American Conceptualism. Drawing from a wide range of sources-advertising, film culture, Marcel Duchamp, and Ludwig Wittgenstein-he created absurdist, complex yet accessible juxtapositions. The catalogue of the exhibition “Ahmedabad 1992” presents an alluring series of mixed media assemblages Baldessari produced during his residency in India. In the early weeks of 1992, Baldessari was invited to live and work in the expansive compound of the Sarabhai family, Indian industrialists and patrons of the arts, in the Shahibaug district of Ahmedabad. Members of the prominent family formally set up the residency in the 1970s, but the Sarabhais were interacting with artists, designers and architects long beforehand. Like many patrons and cultural protagonists of post-independence India, they actively engaged with foreign artists and established international networks, hoping to restrain revivalist currents and promote a new vision for the country. Following several other established artists, among them his close friend Lynda Benglis, Baldessari resided in the Villa Sarabhai, a red brick and concrete open-plan house designed by Le Corbusier in the 1950s. The rarely seen multi-panelled works that stem from Baldessari’s stay are a direct response to his new surroundings, which were inspiring and overwhelming in equal measure and had a lasting impact on the artist’s oeuvre. The collages are composed of his own photographs, some enhanced by paint; an eclectic mix of found imagery; rubber mudflaps painted by local sign painters; Formica pieces modelled after parts of local motorized rickshaws; and printed handmade paper collected from the Gandhi ashram in Ahmedabad. Immersing himself in Indian culture, the Californian photographed the bustling city at a time when India was subject to radical changes due to the emergence of new technologies, globalization processes, and an influx of Westerners. reassembled to stress their original ambiguity or curiousness.-Dimitris Lempesis