Life's Balance (With Money)

Artist John Baldessari (American, 1931 - 2020)

Date1989-1990

MediumPhotogravure with aquatint

DimensionsImage: 48 3/4 × 40 5/8 inches (123.83 × 103.19 cm)
Sheet: 51 1/4 × 43 inches (130.18 × 109.22 cm)

Credit LineGift of Hallmark Cards, Inc.

Object number2005.27.5006

SignedSigned on sheet recto, lower right, in pencil: "BALDESSARI"

InscribedOn sheet recto, lower left, in pencil: "23/45"

Markingsnone

Edition/State/Proofed. 23/45

On View

On view

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DescriptionThree images presented on a single mount. The top image is of women with green dollar bills scattered in the air. The lower left image is of a pair of legs balancing on a tiered platform above a cylinder. The lower right image is of a man holding a yellow ring in his left hand while balancing plates on his head, finger, and a rod from his mouth.Gallery Label

Gallery Label

John Baldessari took photographic images from popular culture—such as newspapers, magazines, advertisements, and movies—and recontextualized them together in works of art. The combined and rearranged images create strange, fractured, and often humorous narratives. His work plays with the tensions that run through American consumer culture and entertainment—order and chaos, reason and decadence, meaning and nonsense.

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