| Artist: | John Baldessari |
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|---|---|---|
| Title: | Cremation Piece | |
| Date: | 1969 | |
| Nationality: | American | |
| Context: | Conceptual | |
| Movement: | ||
| Materials: | ||
| Subject: Baldessari states that it was an attempt "to rid my life of accumultated art." Had all his accumulated work cremated at a mortuary; called it "a reductive, recycling piece. . . . Will the paintings having become dust become art materials again?" The ultimate in dematerializing the work of art; all that remains is the idea. Style: a performance piece in a way; documented the procedure and then mounted this statement on the wall; art making as a purge; makes this piece by unmaking his earlier pieces Context: questioning what it means to make art objects in a commodity world already overloaded with objects; the concept drives the work; the idea and the questioning of art replace the art object and traditional art making processes; the conceptual as a new form of process in its own right; part of the dematerialization of the object from1966 to 1972, as documented by Lucy Lippard | ||
