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Repair/Retouch Series: An Allegory on Wholeness (Plate and Man with Crutches)

1976
Not on view
On loan to The Met
This work of art is currently on loan to the museum.
Baldessari, an influential conceptual artist and teacher at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), made his first photographic works in the late 1960s. He began to experiment with retouching in the mid-1970s, inspired by rumors that marketing agencies were secretly embedding subliminal messages in advertisements. Here, he used paint and airbrush to “heal” a one-legged man and a broken dish—a droll twist on the metaphor of “doctoring” photographs.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Repair/Retouch Series: An Allegory on Wholeness (Plate and Man with Crutches)
  • Artist: John Baldessari (American, National City, California 1931–2020 Los Angeles)
  • Date: 1976
  • Medium: Gelatin silver prints
  • Dimensions: Image: 36.5 x 58 cm (14 3/8 x 22 13/16 in.)
    Frame: 40.6 x 61.6 cm (16 x 24 1/4 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Collection of Gilbert and Lila Silverman, Detroit
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs