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Baldessari, John : John Baldessari: Close-cropped Tales

CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, NY, 1981

First Edition / First Printing. Fine in No Dust Jacket, As Issued. Unpaginated. Artist Book. The first and only edition. Published in a small and limited print run of 3000 copies as a softcover original only. There is no ISBN. The First Edition is now rare. An austerely elegant production by John Baldessari: Regular-sized volume format. Plain softcovers with titles on the cover, as issued. Photographically-based Conceptual art by John Baldessari. Except for the titles, there is no text. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. Without DJ, as issued. Published on the occasion of the exhibition, "John Baldessari: New Work", held at the CEPA Gallery Buffalo in 1981. The latter (and this accompanying volume) was part of FOUR BY THREE, four exhibitions and concurrent artist residencies by three artists, including Baldessari, sponsored by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the CEPA Gallery, and The Hallwalls. Presents John Baldessari's "Close-Cropped Tales". Film stills reproduced as photographs, appropriated, and re-presented by the artist as progressively bizarre croppings. What he calls our attention to (because we typically ignore it) and finally matters are the borders rather than the images contained within: Three-Sided Tales (or a triangle), Four-Sided Tales (a square). And so on as things get bizarrely complicated: Five-Sided, Six-Sided, Seven-Sided, and Eight-Sided. Every film must be contained with the four sides of a square or rectangle, and whether it's at the theater, on TV, video disc, streaming platform, or cell phone. Baldessari's acute point is that only art, and not just the Conceptual kind, can subvert and transcend the unavoidable borders imposed by the moving image. Trust the angle, not the tale. An absolute "must-have" title for John Baldessari collectors. This copy is very prominently and beautifully signed in black pen-marker on the title page by John Baldessari. It is signed directly on the page itself, not on a tipped-in page. This title is a contemporary art classic. As far as we know, this is the only such signed copy of the First Edition/First Printing available online and despite its imperfection (browning and slight wear on the softcovers) is still in especially fine condition: Every single page is clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Baldessari did NOT sign most copies of the book. Signed copies of any book by him are scarce because he is an infrequent signer at best. A rare signed copy thus. 27 plates. One of the greatest artist/photographers of our time. A fine collectible copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER JOHN BALDESSARI TITLES IN OUR CATALOG).

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