07.10.08 - 25.01.09




The BACA International (Biennial Award for Contemporary Art) has undergone a transformation. As of 2008, the award will be given to an artist over the age of 45. This means that the BACA has become an award for a true master, whose influence has been felt for some time already. It was decided to do away with two restrictions – the age limit and the geographical boundary; the latter of which explains the addition of the word 'international'.

John Baldessari
On the basis of these new criteria, a jury, consisting of Bice Curiger, Robert Storr and Alexander van Grevenstein, decided to proclaim John Baldessari (US) BACA Laureate 2008. He meets the highest demands that can be required of a master. Not only is he a key figure in today's art world, but he has been associated as a renowned professor to the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia (1970 – 1988) and to the University of California in Los Angeles (1996 – 2007). In this capacity, too, he can be regarded as one of today's most influential artists.

The jury sees him as the link between Pop Art and the generation of younger artists who use photography. The jury also commends his stimulating, open attitude towards others (pupils), which is reflected in the various cooperative ventures he has undertaken with young international artists. Significant in this respect is the fact that John Baldessari does not merely extol photography as triumphant over exposed painting. His critical attitude with regard to photography itself is equally proverbial. The saying 'nothing appears as it is – nothing is what it appears to be' applies to his complex oeuvre, and his use of mild humour softens an often critical visual proposition.

Masterclass
Under the title Chanting Baldessari, six young artists from the Maastricht postgraduate institute the Jan van Eyck Academy are showing their work in the exhibition of BACA Laureate John Baldessari.

Ruth Buchanan (NZ) & Rachel Koolen (NL) are presenting 'a retrospective of the development of the project' in a complex multimedia installation. Two wall paintings with slide projections by Eleni Kamma (CY/GR) suggest a historical relationship between Mondriaan's Boogie Woogie and a Turkish tulip motif. With the help of light and shade, photographer Jean-Baptiste Maitre (F) investigates the perception of truth and deception in a video installation based on the Jayson Blair scandal. Kristin Posehn (US) has made a large-scale photo work that assumes the sculptural forms of its subject; in this case an American pioneer's hut. And finally, in a confrontational video project, Stéphane Querrec (F) shows an amateur actor who attempts to master the text written (and rewritten) by Querrec.

This an Example of That
John Baldessari sent Koen van den Broek (1973) a series of photos from his archive of scenery and sets from the world of cinema and Hollywood. Van den Broek thought up 22 suggestive 'supporting' images for this series – magnified in sizes ranging from small to monumental – with bright paint, strokes and stripes, so that the work is accentuated by a new way of reading it.

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