John Baldessari

Pure Beauty

Tate Modern 13 October 2009  –  10 January 2010

Explore:

• Interview
• Room 1
• Room 2
• Room 3
• Room 4
• Room 5
• Room 6
• Room 7
• Room 8
• Room 9
• Room 10
• Room 11
• Room 12
• Room 13

Room 1

One of the founders of conceptual art, John Baldessari uses words and images interchangeably with equal measures of self-reflection and wit. He is a master of the visual one-liner, but beneath his playful approach lies a deep and sustained interest in ordering the world around him. He repeatedly embraces banality, integrating elements of the everyday into his work, and revelling in the absurdity of it all.

Baldessari was born in 1931 in National City, California, and has played a key role in establishing the West Coast as a leading site of innovation in the arts. As a teacher at the California Institute of the Arts and at UCLA, he has had a profound impact on generations of younger artists.

This room includes some of the few pieces that survived his 1970 Cremation Project, in which he burned almost all of his previous work. They represent his first steps towards a conceptual art practice, questioning the function of art and challenging the importance of the artist’s hand. Preserved from destruction largely by chance, these disparate works are the foundation for much of what follows.

Curated by Jessica Morgan, Curator, Tate Modern, and Leslie Jones, Associate Curator, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, with Kerryn Greenberg, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern
Texts by Kerryn Greenberg