Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-Six Attempts) by John Baldessari (American, 1931–2020) is a complete limited edition portfolio from 1973, comprising twelve offset lithographs in colors on coated stock paper, housed in the original blue letterpress folio with die-cut window.

In this landmark work of conceptual photography, Baldessari transforms a simple, absurd gesture into one of the most iconic statements in conceptual art — and a deadpan parody of the Pollock-era myth of the lone male genius wrestling heroically with his medium, replaced here by a casual backyard ball toss.

The series documents Baldessari's repeated attempts to photograph three balls suspended mid-air in perfect alignment, a feat governed entirely by chance. The 36 attempts are no accident: they correspond precisely to the number of frames in a standard roll of 35mm film, a structural joke hidden in plain sight, with the best 12 selected for the final portfolio. The work was also a two-person collaboration — while Baldessari threw, his then-wife Carol Wixom operated the camera — making chance the product of two performances intersecting rather than a single artist's will.

The result is one of conceptual art's most enduring statements about authorship, process, and the arbitrary standards by which artistic success is measured. The artwork is held in the permanent collections of SFMOMA and the Museum of Contemporary Photography, among others.