READ/WRITE/THINK/DREAM: close up view of student portrait superimposed on entrance/exit

Before his 1994 visit to UCSD, Baldessari had been thinking about Ghiberti’s fifteenth-century bronze doors in Florence which render Bible stories in high relief, teaching the moral lessons of the day. His work also involves lessons, but in the form of questions rather than answers: through surprising combinations of pictures he prods the viewer into open-ended puzzles. The most prominent doors at UCSD were at the entrance to the Geisel Library, a landmark building designed by the California architect William Pereira, with a 1992 expansion by Gunnar Birkerts. Baldessari decided first to transform the library doors and then to incorporate the entire lobby space, choosing students as his subject. The entrance to the Geisel Library is comprised of a wall of eight ten-foot high glass panels flanking two pairs of automatic sliding doors. Onto each of these panels the artist placed photographic images of UCSD students standing atop a row of shelved books. They become part of the architectural structure – like a Greek temple using the figures as columns, the books as their bases.

The existing clear glass of the doors was replaced with glass in primary colors, perhaps suggesting primary sources of information. As the doors open and close, the colored panes cross over each other, visually mixing into new colors. Above the doors the words READ, WRITE, THINK and DREAM echo the exhortation Baldessari gave his students to remember that beyond the day-to-day grind comes the chance to contemplate the unexpected and envision new worlds.

• 2001

• Stuart Collection (San Diego, Calif.)

• Rittermann, Philipp Scholz (American photographer, 1955 CE-)

• Baldessari, John (American conceptual artist, born 1931)

• Beebe, Mary Livingstone (American, born 1940)

Geisel Library, University of California, San Diego; La Jolla, California, United States

glass (material); computer-generated

• Architecture (object genre)
• Conceptual
• Entrance halls
• Lobbies
• Murals (any medium)
• Portraits
• Sculpture (visual work)
• Site-specific works
• Walls

• University of California, San Diego--History

• American
• Books
• Caryatids
• Color (perceived attribute)
• Contemporary
• Education
• Façades
• Humor
• Public spaces
• Students
• Transparency (optical property)

Point: 32.88087, -117.237564

• image

• No linguistic content; Not applicable

Decorative Arts, Utilitarian Objects and Interior Design

Sculpture and Installations

• Rittermann, Philipp Scholz (American photographer, 1955 CE-)

Under copyright (US)

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2022-10-27