Explore Specimen (After Dürer)

Read About This Artwork by John Baldessari

Perhaps you can project yourself into the position of the bug and imagine yourself in some other world, being pinned to the wall as a specimen.John Baldessari

The American artist John Baldessari chose a small drawing of a Stag Beetle made in 1505 by German artist Albrecht Dürer as the starting point for this project. The Dürer drawing is about one quarter of the size of a regular 8 ½ by 11-inch piece of paper—quite small! Baldessari created a very large image of the artwork on a huge canvas that is 11 ½ feet wide and 14 ½ feet long—that’s big enough to fit about 970 of Dürer’s Stag Beetle drawings in the same area!

The finished artwork, named Specimen (After Dürer) is mounted to the wall and has a gigantic metal T-pin piercing the bug. T-pins are used by naturalists and biologists as a way of holding down their specimens, but they are typically much smaller than this one. This giant T-pin looks like it was stabbed through the back of the beetle, as though it put an end to the critter on the canvas!

Questions

Write or discuss your responses.

• Baldessari was very interested in the idea of chance. How does the way his artwork is hung give the impression that it got there by chance?
• Baldessari’s quote suggests you “project yourself into the position of the bug and imagine yourself in some other world, being pinned to the wall as a specimen.” Based on this quote, what do you think he wanted the viewer of Specimen (After Dürer) to experience or feel?