Context of the “WRONG!” photograph

In 1967 John Baldessari exhibited his ‘wrong’ series. He uses a selection of photographic images anchored by text. The most famous of which, titled ‘wrong; shows an image with poor composition juxtaposed by the text wrong’ below the photograph.

The irony of the word is what makes the image so appealing, just blatant judgement of the photograph. The message that Baldessari was trying to say in the image is why should we conform to conventional aspects of art or photography? Why does our work have to be judged? The interesting fact is that an idea cannot be wrong or right as it is executed as a personal response. John Baldessari once stated: “You don’t want anyone to say, ‘You can’t do that!’

When I take a glance at this photograph, I feel a sense of nostalgia. It looks like the man feels very proud of whatever he is doing as if he bought a house and wants to save it as an important memory. A photo doesn’t have to be an aesthetically pleasing photo to hold memories, which is what makes photos so great, the memories and nostalgia. The photograph isn’t necessarily composed in the most artistic way, neither is it showing us much, but to the photographer, it might mean more than just a guy standing in a driveway. Nothing in the world is technically “bad,” which is what makes everything unique in its own way. It depends on what views and perspectives you are looking for, which could either make it interesting to you or not. That’s why context is so important in a piece of art; we want to see the piece of art in the best perspective we can and to see it from the perspective of the person creating the art.

We know from just the statement “wrong” that he recognizes how the photograph is not composed in the most perfectionist way, nor in an appealing way. But this doesn’t stop him from making something bad, into something good. The phrase “one man’s trash is another’s treasure”, can be related to this context pretty well, but in this case, Baldessari takes uses this photo as his trash and treasure.

Citations:

Baldessari, John “Wrong” Photograph. Dragon’s Exchange, ISB, 22nd August 2024. https://dx.isb.cn/dash/#/classroom/648607/sections/lesson/344114/page/344116/edit, Accessed 24nd

August 2024.

WRONG! | International School of Beijing. dx.isb.cn/dash/#/classroom/648607/sections/lesson/344114/page/344118.