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John Baldessari’s art is cheerfully laconic. It strikes this special tone, broadcast as if on its own frequency, from its beginnings until the present day. Is there a method to it? And, if so, what does it consist of? The simpler answer points to an ever-surprising change in perspective that Baldessari offers his viewers. A slightly shifted view of art, the world, and its image…
But there is more: a daring intellectual feat in his approach, precisely because it includes acting stupid. Baldessari assumes a calculated risk that he will not be understood fully, but with the aim of deriving intellectual profit from that. — Bice Curiger*
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*Bice Curiger, “Doubly Detached, Doubly Immersed,” in John Baldessari: Pure Beauty (Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2009).
John Baldessari was born in National City, California, in 1931 and died on January 2, 2020 at home in Venice Beach.
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John Baldessari, from top: Goya Series: And, 1997, courtesy and © the Museum of Modern Art, New York, SCALA/Art Resource, New York; artist unknown [John Baldessari], late 1960s, reproduced in David Antin’s article “John Baldessari,” Studio International, July–August, 1970; Beach Scene/Nuns/Nurse (With Choices), 1991, courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery; Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line {Best of Thirty-Six Attempts) (detail), 1973, courtesy and © the estate of the artist, Giampaolo Prearo Editore S.r.L.,Galleria Toselli, Milan, and the Research Library, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles; The Overlap Series: Jogger (with Cosmic Event), 2000–2001; Wrong, 1966–1968, courtesy of Museum Associates, LACMA and Marian Goodman Gallery; Eight Soups: Corn Soup, 2012, (borrowed an image from Henri Matisse, Goldfish and Sculpture, 1912), courtesy of Gemini G.E.L.; Beethoven’s Trumpet , photograph by Andreu Dalmau; Three Red Paintings, 1988, photograph courtesy and © Douglas M. Parker; Tips for Artists Who Want to Sell, 1966–1968, courtesy of the Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica; Various Shadows, 1984, courtesy of Jim Tananbaum/Prospect Ventures. Images courtesy and © the estate of John Baldessari and Marian Goodman Gallery.
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