Giampaolo Prearo recounts his friendship with John Baldessari

Publisher Giampaolo Prearo shares a personal letter about his long friendship with artist John Baldessari, beginning with their first meeting at Baldessari's 1972 exhibition at Franco Toselli's gallery in Milan, titled "John Baldessari: Choosing, Aligning, Floating, April 1972." Prearo produced a small catalog documenting Baldessari's performance in California, where the artist threw three colored balls into the sky attempting to form a straight line. Of 36 frames shot, only 12 were selected as evidence of the alignment. Prearo printed 2,000 copies of the catalog, priced at two dollars, but sold none. A decade later, a flood in his storage destroyed about 1,200 copies. Only a few were given as gifts to friends, journalists, and artists. In 2010, when Baldessari had an exhibition at Fondazione Prada in Milan, Prearo and Toselli rebound the remaining 500 copies in blue silk as a tribute to the California sky, adding their signatures to the colophon. Their last contact was in 2018, when Prearo asked Baldessari to create an image for the cover of "La Lettura," the cultural supplement of Corriere della Sera, issue no. 349 of August 5, 2018, with a text by Gianluigi Colin.