Jacob’s Ladder: John Baldessari Edition at the Deutsche
Guggenheim
In
Charles Laughton’s famous film
Night of the Hunter, the wonderful Robert Mitchum plays a bigoted,
violent preacher who has a very special tattoo. Across the back of the
fingers of one hand is written "love"; across the fingers of the other
stands "hate". John
Baldessari, the creator of the current commissioned artwork for
Deutsche Bank’s art collection, also sees love and hate as two sides of
the same coin – at least that’s the suggestion made by the limited-edition
piece he’s created on the occasion of his exhibition at the
Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin.
John Baldessari: Jacob's Ladder, Motivausschnitte
The piece is inspired by a children’s toy also popular with adults, and which
dates back to ancient China. Today, it’s known under the name
Jacob’s ladder. In this case, it’s a vertical spool around which
a repeating series of images moves.
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John Baldessari: Jacob's Ladder,
Motivausschnitte
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Baldessari Edition:
Jacob's Ladder
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Baldessari’s limited
edition isn’t mechanically-driven, but rather by means of a small electric
motor. It features a total of twelve different motifs, each of which is
typical for the work of the artist, who was born in 1931 in San Diego.
They’re film stills from American B-movies: six kissing couples and six
duelling, pistol-packing cowboys. When the motor of Baldessari’s Jacob’s
ladder is set in motion, the images appear to flow into each other
endlessly – love and hate as a Hollywood-influenced perpetual motion
machine.
John Baldessari, Jacob’s Ladder: Love (Yellow, Red,
Blue and Black and White); War (Orange, Violet, Green and Black and White)
, 2004
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