JOHN BALDESSARI (1931-2020)

The series Noses & Ears, Etc. had its inception when I was a painter in the mid-fifties. I was immersed in thinking about totality- (what is a whole and what is a part?). Painting sections of the human body was a part of that investigation- ears and noses especially. ...To represent people only by an ear and/or nose became for me another way of reducing human identity to a minimum. Faces become clichés like anything else so viewing people only by ears and/ or nose might enable the viewer to see afresh.
—John Baldessari