John Baldessari (1931-2020) is widely regarded as one of the leading figures of the Conceptual Art movement. An artist whose work consistently challenged conventional ideas about images, representation, and the nature of art itself, Baldessari repeatedly returned to fragments of the human body—including hands, feet, eyes, ears, and noses—isolating familiar forms and presenting them through varying degrees of abstraction. This treatment of facial features has been described as "offer[ing] ways of exploring myriad conceptual questions, including the problem of perception and the physiological basis of experience, and the constitutive role of faces in forging (and erasing) human identities and selfhoods."
A compelling example of Baldessari's sustained interest in physiognomy is Noses & Ears, Etc.: Face with Nose and (Green) Ear, published by Gemini G.E.L. in Los Angeles in 2006. Constructed from screenprinted elements that have been hand-cut and mounted onto Sintra board, the work sits somewhere between printmaking, collage, and relief sculpture. Rather than depicting a complete portrait, Baldessari reduces the human profile to a handful of forms: a sculptural nose, a vividly colored green ear, and broad planes of saturated color that define the contours of a face. The viewer instinctively reconstructs the absent figure from these isolated fragments, demonstrating Baldessari's enduring fascination with the ways perception allows us to derive meaning from abstraction and conjure the whole from fractions.
JOHN BALDESSARI | (Detail) Noses & Ears, Etc.: Face with Nose and (Green) Ear, 2006. Hand-cut screen prints mounted to Sintra board, 30 x 58 in (76.2 x 147.32 cm)
In a conversation with Hans-Ulrich Obrist conducted in Miami in 2006, Baldessari explained his interest in these particular facial features:
"Thinking about art history, it seems that lips and eyeballs have been getting a lot of attention, but I haven't seen many examples of ears and noses. I suppose they just don't separate very well. I mean, floating eyeballs and lips seems [sic] to work okay, but not noses and ears, so I decided to free the nose and ear."
Characteristically humorous, the remark also reveals Baldessari's conceptual approach. By isolating features that have traditionally received little independent attention, he encourages viewers to reconsider how portraits function and how remarkably little visual information is required for us to recognize a face. The work is at once playful and analytical, inviting us to participate in completing the image ourselves.
JOHN BALDESSARI | (Detail) Noses & Ears, Etc.: Face with Nose and (Green) Ear, 2006. Hand-cut screen prints mounted to Sintra board, 30 x 58 in (76.2 x 147.32 cm)
There is also an important art historical connection between Baldessari's abstracted facial imagery and Surrealism, particularly the work of René Magritte. In Baucis's Landscape (1966), the floating eyes, nose, and lips are not fully disembodied even as they hover in air under a hat and over a suit. While Magritte employed this strategy to evoke mystery and dreamlike ambiguity with a title that alludes to Greek mythology, Baldessari's fragmentation and use of spare anatomical parts is a deadpan study of the mechanics of perception, illustrating how images produce meaning when they are intentionally left unresolved. The mind processes the shapes and pops of color into a face as instinctively as breathing in and breathing out.
RENÉ MAGRITTE | Baucis's Landscape, 1966. Oil on canvas, 21 7/8 x 18 in (55.6 x 45.7 cm). The Menil Collection, Houston © C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Noses & Ears, Etc.: Face with Nose and (Green) Ear also reflects Baldessari's long and productive relationship with Gemini G.E.L., the renowned Los Angeles print publisher. Beginning in the early 1990s, Baldessari collaborated with Gemini to produce increasingly ambitious editions that combined screen printing, lithography, photography, collage, and sculptural construction. In 2014, Gemini celebrated this collaboration with the exhibition John Baldessari: 20 Years with Gemini, which surveyed more than two decades of innovation between artist and publisher. Describing these editions, Gemini characterized Baldessari's approach as one of "brinkmanship"—continually pushing and testing the limits of printmaking. An impression of Face with Nose and (Green) Ear was included in that exhibition, underscoring its significance within Baldessari's graphic oeuvre.
The work itself demonstrates why Gemini proved to be such a natural collaborator. Rather than producing a conventional flat print, Baldessari incorporated hand-cut forms mounted to Sintra board, creating a shallow relief that adds depth to the graphic picture plane. The result toggles between print and sculpture, exemplifying the technical experimentation that became a hallmark of both Baldessari's practice and Gemini's workshop. As the curator and art historian Anne Rorimer observed in 2007:
"Throughout his career John Baldessari has been devoted to deliberately breaking the rules and regulations of artistic practice. More than four decades ago, when he initiated his ongoing aesthetic investigations, he took it upon himself to question set representational modes. Since then, he has played a dominant role in the now historic extension of the once secure boundaries of painting on canvas beyond its former, medium-specific confines. He thus joins other internationally known Conceptualists, [sic] who likewise expanded the defining limits of painting and sculpture."
That impulse to question accepted artistic conventions defined Baldessari's career long before Face with Nose and (Green) Ear was produced. In 1970, he famously gathered all the paintings he had made from 1953 to 1966 and had them cremated in what became known as The Cremation Project. The ashes were mixed into cookie dough and placed in a book-shaped urn with a bronze plaque bearing the dates "May 1953 - March 1966," symbolically marking the end of his earlier artistic practice. The project became one of the defining gestures of Conceptual Art, reflecting Baldessari's willingness to abandon traditional expectations in pursuit of new artistic possibilities. Around this same period, he articulated one of his best-known artistic maxims: "I will not make any more boring art."
Gemini G.E.L. shared a similar commitment to experimentation. As art critic Alan G. Artner wrote in 1994:
"Gemini has the reputation of attempting virtually anything their artists want, no matter how technically complex it is or how it seems to lie outside accepted definitions of printmaking... Skeptical viewers should keep in mind, however, that only through a continual pushing back of boundaries do we arrive at definitions that keep whatever media artists are engaged with relevant to their time."
Few artists embodied that philosophy more completely than Baldessari. His collaboration with Gemini consistently produced editions that challenged traditional distinctions between printmaking, painting, photography, collage, and sculpture while maintaining the wit and conceptual rigor that defined his broader practice. Noses & Ears, Etc.: Face with Nose and (Green) Ear exemplifies this spirit of experimentation. Through the deceptively simple arrangement of a nose, an ear, and a few bold abstract forms, Baldessari transforms the human face into an exploration of perception, representation, and the construction of meaning that demonstrates his enduring conceptual concerns and the possibilities of printmaking.
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MORE DETAILS
JOHN BALDESSARI | (Detail) Noses & Ears, Etc.: Face with Nose and (Green) Ear, 2006. Hand-cut screen prints mounted to Sintra board, 30 x 58 in (76.2 x 147.32 cm)
JOHN BALDESSARI | (Detail) Noses & Ears, Etc.: Face with Nose and (Green) Ear, 2006. Hand-cut screen prints mounted to Sintra board, 30 x 58 in (76.2 x 147.32 cm)
JOHN BALDESSARI | (Detail) Noses & Ears, Etc.: Face with Nose and (Green) Ear, 2006. Hand-cut screen prints mounted to Sintra board, 30 x 58 in (76.2 x 147.32 cm)
Unless otherwise stated, photos by Marylene Mey, courtesy of Zane Bennett Contemporary Art
Artwork © Artists and the Estates of the artists pictured
