Lot Essay
John Baldessari attended San Diego State University and did post-graduate work at Otis Art Institute, Chouinard Art Institute and the University of California at Berkeley. His artwork has been featured in more than 200 solo exhibitions and in over 900 group exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. His output includes artist books, videos, films, billboards and public works. His awards and honors include 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 Protg Arts Initiative, the California Governor's Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts, the Oscar Kokoschka Prize, the "Spectrum" Internationaler Preis für Fotografie, and the BACA International 2008. Baldessari's recent projects include retrospectives at the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien in Vienna (2005), the Kunsthaus Graz in Graz (2005), and at the Carr d'Art, Muse d'Art Contemporain in Nimes (2005). Upcoming exhibitions include a traveling retrospective that will begin at the Tate Modern in London and travel to the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from 2009-2011.