Details:
① Artwork:
Caparica II
This is a photograph by the internationally recognized theorist and cultural critic Jean Baudrillard. Impulsive and unplanned, this work depicts spaces and objects with punctured surfaces and confounding optics. Although in tension with his writing about art's waning aesthetic significance, Baudrillard's photography reverberates with his interest in the endless reproducibility of the image. His work is full of repetitions, conflicting reflections, transparencies and veils. Each photograph calls into question our understanding of reality—both in its content and its status as a reproduction.
The reverse side of this photograph offers equal insight into Baudrillard’s approach to photography. Although his work is printed uniquely, without editions or subsequent reproductions, Baudrillard signed the back of these works and annotated many of them with fictitious edition numbers. This was his own humorous way of contending with the conventions of photography as fine art. He found amusement in the suggestion that an artist can control the rarity or multiplicity of an image by implementing a system of editions.
Specs:
③ Artist:
Jean Baudrillard’s photographs are unplanned and impulsive, capturing incidental moments. They are filled with repetitions and reflections, depicting spaces and objects whose surfaces are punctured and whose optics are confounding. Baudrillard’s photos exist in tension with his writing about art’s waning importance; yet his work also reverberates with his claims that the photographic image stands for endless reproducibility—and thereby calls into question our understanding of reality.
BIO:
Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) was born in Reims, France. He is internationally recognized for his work as a sociologist, cultural critic and theorist of postmodernity.
Solo exhibitions of Baudrillard’s photographs have taken place at: the Venice Biennale in Italy (1993); the Daelim Museum in Seoul, Korea (2005); the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (1996); and the Times Museum in Guangzhou, China (2012).
Other solo exhibitions of Baudrillard’s work have taken place at: Power Station of Art in Shanghai, China (2019) and Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany (2003); as well as a solo exhibition curated by Eric Troncy at the Academie Conti in Vosne-Romanée, France (2018), which was concurrent with his inclusion in L’Almanach 18 at Le Consortium in Dijon, France.
The writing of Jean Baudrillard has been published and internationally distributed extensively since the late 1960s. He has authored titles such as: The Conspiracy of Art (2005); The Ecstasy of Communication (1987); Simulacra and Simulation (1981); and For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign (1972). His writing has left an indelible mark on contemporary discourses surrounding art, culture production, consumerism and contemporary affairs. His theoretical contributions to postmodernity are lauded as some of the period’s most endearing and impactful.
This is a photograph by the internationally recognized theorist and cultural critic Jean Baudrillard. Impulsive and unplanned, this work depicts spaces and objects with punctured surfaces and confounding optics.More
- Framed: 12.5 x 17.1 x 1.5 in.
- Signed with intentionally erroneous edition note
