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18/10/2007

John Baldessari

Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris

Marian Goodman Gallery is very pleased to announce a new exhibition by John Baldessari that will open to the public on Friday, October 19th and will be on view through Saturday, November 24th.

We will be presenting a series of new works entitled ‘Arms & Legs (specif. Elbows & Knees), etc.’ a group of over-painted photographic prints to which three-dimensional collage elements are added. In this group of works, John Baldessari’s “fascination with color, the relation of photography to painting, and viewing the picture plane on three levels rather than the conventional single plane” is once again in evidence. The artist has said: “Perhaps these works can be seen as not painting, photography or sculpture, but a melding of all three.”

Following on Noses & Ears, Etc., which was presented at Marian Goodman Gallery, New York last fall, the current exhibition continues the subject matter of human body parts and the artist’s investigation of totality, specifically “what we leave in and out of an image.”

In the current exhibition, three-dimensionality, the relationship with space, and the primacy of a site specific installation, all play ever-important roles. “Arms & Legs (Specif. Elbows & Kness), etc: Blue Torso and Pink Arm”, for example, encompasses the wall as a painted element paired with a three-dimensional component, thus enhancing the contrast of the flat background and the relief in the foreground. Baldessari’s use of cool colors, contrasted with warm hues in pink and yellow, contribute to the perception of different levels and thresholds, and a melding of fictional and real space.

John Baldessari has been an innovative force in contemporary art, redefining its parameters to include its role as a visual evocation of language, and leading the way in bringing photography as a medium to the forefront of contemporary art, a movement which changed the international art world forever. The artist’s trajectory, developed over five decades of conceptual practice, began with painting and later moved to photo-based work, embracing film, video, books, prints, objects and installation along the way. Baldessari’s use of appropriation, alteration, cropping, erasure, and montage to disrupt a narrative or to construct an entirely new meaning out of recombined fragments, has been utilized in disparate ways in different bodies of works spanning his career.

From the early photo-text paintings of the sixties, to the conceptual works of the seventies, to the ‘found pictures’ of the 1980s; from the erased identity and overpainted ‘dot’ works of the 1990s, to the “Goya” series and later “Tetrad” works of the late nineties; and more recently, from the ”Overlaps”/“Intersections”, and “Windows”/“Columns”, as well as “Prima Facie” works, allegory and allusion, dichotomy and opposition, and chance correspondences, are at the heart of Baldessari’s working practice. In recent years, he has also been investigating new issues of painting in his work.

John Baldessari was born in National City, California in 1931. He received his BA and MA from San Diego State College, CA (1949-53 and 1955-57, respectively) and studied at University of California, Berkeley (1954-55); UCLA (1955); Otis Art Institute 91957-59); and the Chouinard Art Institute, LA.

Last year he was honored by The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. He was the recipient of a Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, National University of Ireland in April 2006.

A major retrospective in two parts: Works 1962-1984 at the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Vienna, and Works: 1984-2005 at Kunsthaus Graz am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz was held in 2005.

Most recently, his exhibitions which opened last May at both the Kunstmuseum Bonn and the Bonner Kunstverein, Germany focused on John Baldessari’s artistic engagement with music. He was invited to curate the exhibition Ways of Seeing: John Baldessari Explores the Collection, on view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in July 2007. An exhibition of the Prima Facie works was on view at the Museum Dhondt Daenens, Belgium in 2006. John Baldessari conceived a unique installation for the gallery design of the exhibition: “Magritte and Contemporary Art: The Treachery of images” which was on view at LACMA, Los Angeles from November 2006 until March 2007.

Solo presentations of his work over the past five years have included exhibitions at: Carre d’Art Musee Contemporain de Nimes, France (2005-2006); Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin (2004); Museo d’Arte Moderna Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Trento, Italy (2000-2001); Sprengel Museum, Hannover, (1999-2000); and Albertina im Adademiehof, Vienna (1999).

Opening reception: Friday, October 19th, 6 – 8 p.m.

Marian Goodman Gallery
79 Rue du Temple 75003 Paris

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