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Josephine Gail "Jo" Baer, born Josephine Kleinberg August 7, 1929, is an American artist, whose works are associated with minimalist art.^[1] She began exhibiting her work at the Fischbach Gallery, New York, and other venues for contemporary art in the mid-1960s.^[2]

Life and work [link]

Before relocating to New York City (1950–53) to work for a master's degree in psychology at the New School for Social Research, she lived on a kibbutz in Israel for six months.^[3]

Baer's early work was informed by an admiration of the Abstract Expressionists — Gorky, Motherwell, and Rothko — a movement she later rejected, in favor of painterly hard-edge work.^[4] Baer notes that the early Minimalists called their painterly hard-edge paintings "idiot work," since they were made on saw horses, rather than on the wall. Knowing what she needed to do, she just got it done.^[3]

Having grown up in Seattle, Baer's early paintings employed the black, red, green and beige (or sand) familiar to Northwest Indian Kwakiutl totem poles.^[3] In 1962, she began the series of paintings that dealer Richard Bellamy later named the "Koreans."^[3]

Although Barbara Rose never mentioned Baer in her influential 1965 article ABC Art in Art in America, a photograph of Baer's work illustrating Rose's article inspired gallery director Donald Droll to offer her a solo exhibition at Fischbach Gallery in 1966. Baer's hard-edge paintings were included in notable Minimalist exhibitions including Dan Flavin's Eleven Artists (1964) at Kaymar Gallery, Dwan Gallery's 10 (1966), Lawrence Alloway's Systemic Painting (1966) at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Art in Series (1967) at the Finch College Museum.^[3] In 1969, she began experimenting with wraparound paintings, object-like paintings with diagonal and curved forms that are known as the Radiator paintings (1970–1974), since they hang on the wall just above the floor.^[3]

Baer, one course shy of a master's degree in psychology,^[3] demonstrated her continued interest in this material in her 1970 essay regarding the optical illusions known as Mach bands (named after the physicist Ernst Mach),^[5] at this time her paintings were very much about the edges of the canvas. To get over stage fright, she took dance classes with Yvonne Rainer and Lucinda Childs, eventually performing Rainer's "Trio" at the Lincoln Center Library.^[3] Other dancers she befriended include Judy Dunn, Meredith Monk and Trisha Brown."^[3]

Following her 1975 mid-career survey of Minimalist works at the Whitney Museum in New York, she moved to Ireland where she worked with images and a sensual color palette.^[6] During this period, Baer used erotic imagery found in early cave paintings, Paleolithic sculptures and fertility objects.^[3] Between 1978 and 1980 she worked collaboratively with the English artist Bruce Robbins, work from this collaboration was shown in 8 dual person exhibitions in Europe and America. After living in London for two years, she moved to Amsterdam in 1984, where she has lived ever since.^[3]

Subsequent surveys of her work have been organized by Modern Art Oxford (1977), The Paley Levy Gallery at Moore College of Art and Design (1993), Kröller-Müller Museum (1993), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (1999) and Dia Art Foundation (2002-2003) ^[3] and in 2009 at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven^[7]

In the 1950s Baer also posed for nude photographs, and she has claimed in an interview that (by coincidence) she modeled for the semi-nude photo in Richard Hamilton's famous 1956 collage Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?.^[8]

She is still working but has said "Being so old now, I’m tempted to stop, if I only wasn’t so sure I’d be bored to tears if I did."^[9]

Writing [link]

Baer wrote a number of texts over the years, these are brought together in 'Broadsides & Belles Lettres Selected Writings and Interviews 1965–2010',^[10] which provide a general commentary on art as well as her own attitude to her work.

Texts by Jo Baer [link]

"Statements." Systemic Painting. The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 1966.

"Letters," Artforum, NY, Sept 1967. p. 5-6.

"Edward Kienholz: A Sentimental Journeyman," Art International, Lugano. Apr 1968, p. 45-49.

"Letters." Artforum, New York. Apr 1969, p. 4-5.

"The Artist and Politics: A Symposium." Artforum, Sept 1970. p. 35-36. "Mach Bands: Art and Vision" and "Xerography & Mach Bands: Instrumental Model", Aspen Magazine. Fall-Winter 1970.

Fluorescent Light Culture," American Orchid Society Bulletin, NY, Sept-Oct 1971.

"Art and Politics" and "On Painting". Flash Art, Nov 1972. p. 6-7 .

"To and Fro and Back and Forth: A Dialogue With Seamus Coleman," Art Monthly, London. Mar 1977, p. 6-10.

"Radical Attitudes to the Gallery: Statement," Art-Net, 1977 London. Reprinted in "Galerie," Paul Andriesse, Amsterdam,'89, p. 39.

"On Painting." Jo Baer Paintings 1962-1975", Museum of Modern Art Oxford 1977 (catalogue).

"Radical Attitudes to the Gallery: Statement #2," Studio International, London, 1980.

"Beyond the Pale," (with Bruce Robbins), REALLIFE Magazine, NY, Summer 1983, p. 16-17.

"Jo Baer: I am no longer an abstract artist." Art in America, NY. Oct 1983, p. 136-137.

"Jo Baer: Red, White and Blue Gelding Falling to its Right (Double-cross Britannicus/Tri-color Hibernicus); `Tis Ill Pudling in the Cockatrice Den (La-Bas); The Rod Reversed (Mixing Memory and Desire)," Catalogue, 1990 Amsterdam.

"Jo Baer: Four Drawings," (with Bruce Robbins), Catalogue, Amsterdam, 1993.

"Radical Attitudes to the Gallery," Art Gallery Exhibiting, De Balie, Amsterdam,1996 p. 42-43.

"The Diptych," The Pursuit of Painting, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 1997, catalogue, p. 52.

"The Diptych," Catalogue, Jo Baer, Paintings, 1960–1998, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1999, p26-27. "I am no longer an Abstract Artist," Catalogue, 1999, reprint from '85. pp. 15–19.

Collections [link]

Baer is represented in the following public collections [link]

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y.

Arts Council of Great Britain, London, England Australian National Gallery, Canberra, Australia

Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Md.

Chase Manhattan Bank, NYC, N.Y.

DaimlerChrysler AG, Berlin, Germany

Fort Worth Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Gemeentemuseum Arnhem, Arnhem, NL.

Haags Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag, NL.

Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld, West Germany

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, LA Calif

Kunstmusem Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland.

Ludwig Coll., Kölnischer Kunstverein, Köln, West Germany

Ludwig Coll., Suermondt Museum, Aachen, West Germany

Levi-Strauss Coll., San Francisco, Calif

Michener Coll., University of Texas at Austin, Texass

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Ill Art Institute of Chicago.

Museum of Contemporary Art, L.A.

Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego

Museum of Modern Art, NYC, N.Y Museum of Modern Art.

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Neuberger Museum, State University of New York at Purchase, N.Y.

Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, Calif.

Rijksdienst Beeldende Kunst, The Hague, NL.

Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, NL.

Seattle Art Museum

Saatchi Coll., London, England

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, S.F. Calif..

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC, N.Y.

Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, NL.

Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, NL.

Tate Gallery, London, England Tate^[11]

Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC, NY.

University of North Carolina, Greensboro, North Carolina

Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn.

References [link]

Haskell, Barbara. Jo Baer. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1975.

External links [link]

• Jo Baer, Museum of Modern Art Page
• Artnet
• Artcyclopedia
• Lisson Gallery
• artforum
• bombsite
• contemporary art daily
• Galerie Barbara Thumm
• Oral history interview with Jo Baer, 2010 Oct. 5-7 from the Smithsonian Archives of American Art