John Baldessari, Equestrian (Flesh) in Brackets with Orange Showdown, 1992
I just had these price stickers I was using for something else, in some graphic way and I put them on all the faces and I just felt like it leveled the playing field. - John Baldessari
Beginning in the mid-1950s, John Baldessari combined photography, image montage, painting, and text to create complex compositions with multiple interpretations of cultural iconography while practicing cultural criticism. He used the visual language of advertising and films to create detailed works and absurd juxtapositions.
Baldessari used painterly elements and makes viewers aware that the artist goes through a creative process to create the works. He was one of the most important conceptual artists, focusing on visual elements and textual components that can often be interpreted to create witty or ironic meanings. Early in his career, the use of colored dots on faces in photographs became his trademark - a strategy that forces the viewer to consider the context of the images rather than the specifics of the subjects.