October 22 – 28, 2014
Visionaire 64 ART JOHN BALDESSARI in collaboration with Samsung features selfies by celebrities transformed into artworks by legendary artist John Baldessari. To celebrate the issue, Visionaire produced a week-long interactive public art installation and opening night event in the lobby of the famed Chrysler Building in New York City. The installation then traveled to Miami during Art Basel. Attendees had the opportunity to take selfies with the same designs in the edition rendered as physical sculptures, thereby participating in the activities of the issue at New York City’s Chrysler Building.
The installation consisted of Baldessari’s color shapes in large-scale placed throughout the Chrysler lobby. The public is invited and encouraged to take photos and self-portraits with the color shapes to transform “selfies” into “works of art”. Tagging the photos #64ART will automatically upload them to a screen for others to see.
The edition, Visionaire 64 ART, in collaboration with John Baldessari, features “selfies” by pop icons such as Miley Cyrus, Lupita Nyong’o, James Franco, Drake, and Yoko Ono transformed into art with Baldessari-created colors and shapes. The issue marries modern technology with old-world process, pop culture with high art, digital with analog. Created in partnership with leading innovative technology company Samsung Electronics, this issue celebrates the current ease of digital and emailable self-portraits with the time-honored craftsmanship of printmaking.
THE CHRYSLER BUILDING is a 1.26 million-square-foot art deco masterpiece and part of the two-building Chrysler Center complex on 42nd Street between Lexington and Third Avenues. The landmarked stainless steel masterpiece offers unparalleled 360-degree views of Manhattan and the outlying area, overlooking the East River, Central Park, Times Square and Grand Central Terminal, and is one of the most iconic and recognizable skyscrapers in the world. Commissioned by Walter P. Chrysler, the Chrysler Building opened its doors May 27, 1930. Chrysler, a Michigan industrialist, wanted New York to be the world’s largest stage for his architectural statement. Tishman Speyer acquired the building in 1998, and under Tishman Speyer’s stewardship, the building has been continuously updated and renovated to preserve the classic features, painstakingly repairing and restorating the landmark façade and the timeless elegance of its lobby.
JOHN BALDESSARI is a pioneering California-based conceptual artist whose experimentation across a range of media (collage, printmaking, video/film, photography, digital art, painting, and performance) developed into a defining aesthetic that appropriates mass culture and plays with established conventions and physical form to decontextualize, juxtapose, repeat, and create language, text, and found imagery or objects, particularly in relation to the media, art, and film industries.
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. is a global leader in technology, opening new possibilities for people everywhere. Through relentless innovation and discovery, we are transforming the worlds of TVs, smartphones, tablets, PCs, cameras, home appliances, printers, LTE systems, medical devices, semiconductors and LED solutions. We employ 286,000 people across 80 countries with annual sales of US$216.7 billion. To discover more, please visit www.samsung.com.
64 ART John Baldessari
October 22 – 28, 2014
CHRYSLER BUILDING
405 LEXINGTON AVE. AT 42ND STREET, NYC