John Baldessari
American, born 1931
Six Colorful Inside Jobs 1977
16mm film transfers to video (color, silent)
32:53 min.
Baldessari created a short film in which he positioned himself inside an enclosed room and simultaneously painted the walls red. When I first saw the work, I walked right passed it without giving it any thought or recognition because it was positioned in a very ambiguous corner of the room, along with this, the film itself was silent so I didn’t really notice it to begin with. Upon realizing it was actually there, I wasn’t necessarily a fan at first, but decided to stand in front of it for a while and just see what happened… After a while the walls were engulfed in red, and I was completely captivated by the work. I felt a sense of mystery and disillusion as well as a feeling of weightlessness. Rather than letting my eyes soak in the piece, the work seemed to consume my gaze as a whole and my focus seemed to be completely untouchable. This is when my attitude of completely disliking and not understanding the piece shifted to a more appreciative and interested stance. After doing further research on Six Colorful Inside Jobs I came to the understanding that Baldessari not only painted the walls and floor blood red, but he did the same with every color of the rainbow. This actually made me appreciate the work more and gives me incentive to go back to the MOMA and observe the work in it’s full length because I can only imagine the feelings that other colors would evoke.
