By J.R. Hoffman
One of America’s most influential artists John Baldessari has died at age 88.
Baldessari’s art was well known and celebrated as thought-provoking and on occasion, even humorous. Blending photography with various other media — some of his most recognizable work featuring colorful dots pasted over subjects faces in portraits and photographs.
Andrew Russeth praised him via twitter as someone who “imbued conceptualism with joyful absurdity, and never, ever, ever stopped experimenting.”
The Marian Goodman Gallery in New York, who represented Baldessari, tweeted: “It is with immense sadness that I write to let you know of the death of the intelligent, loving, and incomparable John Baldessari. The loss to his family, his fellow artists, his studio staff, friends, and devoted former students is beyond measure.”
Baldessari continued to produce art well into his 80s and had, according to his official website, featured in more than 300 solo exhibitions. Between 2009 and 2011, a major retrospective of his work, “Pure Beauty,” showed at a number of leading art institutions, including London’s Tate Modern, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Baldessari was living and working in Venice, California, at the time of his death.
