John Baldessari
Brutus Killed Caesar
Akron, USA: The Emily H. Davis Art Gallery, 1976
[35] pp., 10.2 × 27.3 cm., spiral bound
Edition size unknown
Brutus Killed Caesar is a narrow, oblong spiral-bound book which continues Baldessari's study of found photography and appropriated imagery. Each layout features the juxtaposition of three images: portraits of two men facing each other with a “murder weapon” in between them. The portraits remain the same but the weapon changes with each spread: a kitchen knife, a gun, a magnifying glass, a book of matches, pushpins, string, a dart, a pipe, etc. These gradually shift away from the dangerous to the humorous: a withering spider plant, a clothespin, a banana peel.
"Baldessari’s book Brutus Killed Caesar is a narrative on a reduced scale which uses the sequence of pages as a means of comparison. On each page there are the same two facing pictures — blurry newswire photos of facing men who ambiguously signify politicians or gangsters or some kind of sinister patriarchs. Between these two faces is set a possible murder weapon, a different object on each page, ranging from guns and knives to flowerpots and bathroom scales. Altogether this sequence of juxtapositions is like a simple story repeated over and over, in a different way each time. It also demonstrates a range of narrative possibilities: for example the murder weapons are mainly common household objects which, in the context of the book, are ironically manipulated to appear on one hand as clues to a mystery brimming over with dramatic potential, and on the other hand as the worst cliches of banal evil.”
- Tim Guest, Toronto, 1981 (Books By Artists, Art Metropole)
The title is available for $1500 US, from Printed Matter, here.
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