Titles by John Baldessari

Art Disaster
Baldessari Sings LeWitt
Ed Henderson Reconstructs Movie Scenarios
Ed Henderson Suggests Sound Tracks for Photographs
Folding Hat
Four Minutes of Trying to Tune Two Glasses (For the Phil Glass Sextet)
Four Short Films 1972-1973
Haste Makes Waste
How We Do Art Now
I Am Making Art
I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art
Inventory
Police Drawing
Practice Makes Perfect
Script
Six Colorful Inside Jobs
Six Colorful Tales: From the Emotional Spectrum (Women)
Some Words I Mispronounce
Teaching a Plant the Alphabet
The Italian Tape
The Meaning of Various News Photos to Ed Henderson
The Way We Do Art Now and Other Sacred Tales
Three Feathers and Other Fairy Tales
Title
Two Colorful Melodies
Walking Forward-Running Past
Xylophone

Folding Hat

1970-71, 29:48 min, b&w, sound

Folding Hat is a deadpan conceptual exercise that represents a dashed attempt to rescue an object from the meaning assigned to it. Whistling an aria from The Barber of Seville, Baldessari bends and folds a simple hat into numerous configurations. However, for the duration of the exercise, which unfolds in real time, the object never loses its "hatness." In the end it is untransmutable — no escape can be made from its meaning. Although Baldessari tries to drive a wedge between the signifier and signified, the viewer never misrecognizes the hat.

Ordering & Fees

Screening Rental

Digital File

$190.00

Exhibition Rental

Digital File

$940.00

Educational Purchase

DVD NTSC

$400.00