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John Baldessari
The Sprinters, for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, with official COA
1982

Name: The Sprinters, for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, with official COA
Brand: John Baldessari
Price: 2800 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

John Baldessari The Sprinters, 1982 Limited Edition Offset Lithograph on Parson's Diploma paper Signed in graphite on the front. Accompanied by letter of authenticity from the publisher 36 x 24 inches Unframed Accompanied by a letter of authenticity from the publisher on Olympic Committee letterhead. This is one of 750 hand signed lithographic posters, published in 1982 to celebrate the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics . Even though the signed edition is 750, the publisher is said to have sold fewer than 200 and destroyed the rest; hence signed editions of this print are far more scarce than the edition suggests. The Olympic Committee commissioned 15 nationally known artists, including to create unique designs to promote the event. This was John Baldessari's contribution to the portfolio - cleverly juxtaposing a modern day race, with ancient images, tying old and new and honoring the ancient Olympic tradition. In 2017, the Olympic Museum in Lausanne Switzerland featured all 15 lithographs from this portfolio: “The 1980s were marked by non-conformism, eccentricity, audacity and joie de vivre,” say the exhibition organizers, “All these elements are clearly expressed in the stylistic vocabulary chosen by the organizers of the 1984 Games in Los Angeles, with its fun approach and acid colors.” This work is unframed and in fine condition; excellent provenance as it was acquired as part of the complete portfolio of limited edition hand signed Olympic prints, all held in the original box with colophon and authenticity documentation. All of the works in this rare portfolio, including this Baldessari lithographic poster, are unnumbered. Copyright 1982 Los Angeles Olympics Organizing Committee, Published by Knapp Communications Corporation. Provenance: Acquired as part of the complete SIGNED 1984 Olympic Lithographic Print Portfolio Exhibition History: Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, 2017 (different edition)

Creator:

John Baldessari (1931, American)

Creation Year:

1982

Dimensions:

Height: 36 in (91.44 cm)Width: 24 in (60.96 cm)

Medium:

Lithograph,Offset

Movement & Style:

Conceptual

Period:

1980-1989

Condition:

Gallery Location:

New York, NY

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU1745212606222

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John Baldessari

Although Conceptual artist John Baldessari is best known for the richly provocative juxtapositions of photographic images and text that characterize his prints and paintings, he actually had something of a traditional art world upbringing — if such a thing exists.

Born in Southern California, Baldessari earned several art degrees, from art education to art history to painting. He also taught art at various institutions such as the California Institute of the Arts throughout his life. Among his many students were David Salle, Tony Oursler, Jim Shaw and Mike Kelley. While helping to shape the art world in Los Angeles, he simultaneously developed his own name as an artist.

In the 1950s, Baldessari’s works were primarily semiabstract paintings, but during the late 1960s, he began to distance himself from painting, as he bristled at the idea of limiting art to a single medium. Baldessari decided to take his career in a dramatically different direction. He burned all his paintings at a funeral home in San Diego, then incorporated the ashes into cookie dough, producing (nonedible) baked goods for an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

“It was a very public and symbolic act,” he said, “like announcing you’re going on a diet in order to stick to it.”

From that point on, Baldessari took on an MO of experimentation, dabbling in mediums from video to printmaking to sculpture. “I just stare at something and say: Why isn’t that art? Why couldn’t that be art?” he said in an interview in 2008.

The works for which Baldessari is most highly regarded, however, are striking collages of images and text — many of which are seemingly nonsensical — such as Tom’s Hand Grips the Steering, Wheel… (2015), in which the title’s text is displayed beneath a hippopotamus. As such is his body of work: bringing a sense of joviality to the sometimes too-serious world of Conceptual art.

Before he died in 2020, Baldessari was honored with the 2014 National Medal of Arts Award, the Americans for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award, the Venice Biennale’s Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement and more.

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