Exhibition - John Baldessari
Schema 50
Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art
Exhibition: June 2022 - 26 March, 2023
John Baldessari, Ear Sofa and Nose Sconces, 2009.
Memory foam, polyurethane rubber, rigid polyurethane, wood.
Courtesy to Marian Goodman Gallery and the artist.
Opening: June 2022
From June 2022 until 26 March 2023, the Centro Pecci in Prato provides a choice of unique works and archival files to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of Galleria Schema (1972 - 1994), a unique study space for country wide and worldwide neo-avant-garde Florence, at the centenary of the birth of its founder , the artist Alberto Moretti (Carmignano, Prato, 1922 - 2012).
This is the first museum exhibition of its kind, absolutely devoted to the experimental pastime of the Galleria Schema and to the conceptual, anthropological and political paintings elaborated through Alberto Moretti .
The exhibition follows the latest exhibitions devoted to museum collections of radical architecture, of which Galleria Schema become one of the promoters in Italy; additionally reconnects to the presence of the Archive of Mario Mariotti, an artist who has exhibited numerous instances withinside the gallery, and to the latest acquisition of the Archive of Lara-Vinca Masini, a militant critic aware of unbiased creative studies inclusive of that of Schema, in addition to a pal and accomplice of Alberto Moretti.
John Baldessari’s work will be featured in the exhibition. He has created conceptual art that asks questions about what art is, how it is made and how it looks. Combining imagery and linguistic explorations of his pop culture, his work has challenged artistic norms and boundaries throughout his career.
He has developed works that demonstrate and disclose the narrative potential of images and the power of their association with text and language. John Baldessari is considered one of the founding fathers of conceptual art and was a highly innovative force in contemporary art. Disrupting narratives using appropriation, erasure, alteration, and montage, as well as recombining fragments to construct entirely new meanings, has been employed in different ways in different works throughout his career. His artworks often have an underlying streak of humour and irony.
About:
John Baldessari (1931–2020, National City, California) was an American artist living. Initially trained as a painter, Baldessari began experimenting with text and photography and incorporating them into his work in the mid-1960s, evolving his practice through the 1970s into printmaking, film, books, sculpture and installation. He received honorary degrees from the National University of Ireland, San Diego State University and Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design. Baldessari's artwork has been featured in more than 300 solo exhibitions and in over 1000 group exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. His projects include unique works, prints, artist books, videos, films, billboards and public works. His awards and honors include the 2014 National Medal of Arts Award, an award from the International Print Center New York in 2016, memberships in the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Americans for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award, the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, awarded by La Biennale di Venezia, the City of Goslar Kaiserring in 2012, and the BACA International 2008. The John Baldessari Catalogue Raisonné, Volumes Five – Six was published by Marian Goodman Gallery in Association with Yale University Press.
Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art
Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art is located in Italy
Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art
Viale della Repubblica, 277, 59100
Prato PO, Italy
T: +39 0574 5317
E: info@centropecci.it
