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27/1/2008

John Baldessari

Galeria Pepe Cobo, Madrid

Galería Pepe Cobo is pleased to present the last exhibition of the American artist John Baldessari, and his most recent work from the series Arms & Legs (Specif. Elbows & Knees), etc., Part II.

In this series of works, Baldessari’s obsessions with image and representation are all conjured with perfect coherence and economy. Amongst these obsessions stand out the habitual fascination for color and the interrelation of photography and painting, which is conceived under the new light of the artists interest in sculpture. This has drawn him into the conceptual mystery which the illusion of a third dimension within a two-dimensional representation constitutes. Or rather the contrary, as Baldessari reverses symmetrically these principles: His assemblages seem to aim at the exact opposite of what has traditionally constituted the ideal of representation, simulating flatness in that which actually possesses relief. As the artist puts it “Perhaps these works can be seen as not painting, photography or sculpture, but a melding of all three.”

Arms & Legs (Specif. Elbows & Knees), etc., Part II continues with the thematic initiated with the exhibition held at Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris, last year. In both exhibitions certain parts of the human body are presented apart from the rest and made to stand out, from the title itself, as an emblem of this artist’s eternal investigation about that which we leave out of an image and that which we decide to pay attention to. Or in other words: about the basic principles of communication. In fact, the work of John Baldessari is famous for its visual evocation of language, and in this sense it has constituted a decisive influence in contemporary art.

John Baldessari was born in National City, California, in 1931. In 2006 he was honored by the Guggenheim Museum, New York, and was the recipient of a Doctor of Fine Arts, honoris causa, by the National University of Ireland. He has recently shown his work in the Kunstmuseum Bonn and the Bonner Kunstverein, Germany; has been invited to curate Ways of Seeing: John Baldessari Explores the Collection, on view at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in July 2007, and has held an exhibition of his Prima Facie series in the Museum Dhondt Daenens, Bélgica.

Solo presentations of his work over the past five years have included exhibitions at le Carre d’Art Musée Contemporain de Nimes, France (2005-2006); Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin (2004); Museo d’Arte Moderna Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Italy (2000-2001); Albertina im Adademiehof, Vienna (1999). He has also participated in numerous group shows such as the Whitney Biennial 2006: Day for Night, Whitney Museum of American Art, or Le Mouvement des images, Centre Pompidou. In October 2009 the Tate Modern Gallery will be showing a major retrospective of his work.

Opening : jueves, 31 de enero de 2008, 20:30 h.

Galeria Pepe Cobo
c/ Fortuny 39 - Madrid
Timetable : Monday to Friday from 9:30 to 14:00 and from 17:00 to 20:30. Saturdays by appointment.
Free admission

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