VTV Classics (r3): John Baldessari: Pure Beauty / Tate Modern (2009)

The American artist John Baldessari passed away on Thursday, January 2, 2020, in his Venice, CA home. Baldessari is considered as one of the most influential conceptual artists. He was born in National City, California in 1931. John Baldessari began his art career as painter, but then began experimenting with a wide variety of media, including film, collage, and photography. Among his best known works feature colorful dots pasted over subject’s faces in found photographs.

In 2009, a few month after being awarded the Venice Biennale Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, the Tate Modern in London dedicated John Baldessari the most extensive retrospective to that date in the UK. The exhibition entitled “Pure Beauty” brought together more than 130 works and examined the principal concerns of this legendary Californian artist. “With humor and irony, Baldessari’s work dissects the ideas underlying artistic practice and questions the historically accepted rules of how to make art. Fascinated by language and meaning, he has always been interested in the connection between working in the visual field and working with words.” (Excerpt from the press release).

This video is another film in our series of re-mastered and re-edited series of VernissageTV Classics. Our series r3 highlights the treasures of VernissageTV’s huge archive. R3 is a series of VernissageTV classics, now re-mastered, re-edited and reissued in High Definition. Here’s the complete list of videos.

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