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Art
John Baldessari

When

July 11, 2009 – Nov 8, 2009

Tuesdays–Sundays (9:30am–5:15pm)

Where
The Legion of Honor Museum (100 34th Ave, 415.863.3330)
Price
$10
Details
http://www.famsf.org/legion/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?exhibitionkey=1029
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John Baldessari's turbulent, on-again, off-again love affair with Los Angeles is as inseparable from the story of contemporary West Coast art as Robert Moses is from the topography of New York City — only without the hate mail. Within the sanguine subversion of his instantly recognizable dot-festooned images, colorful circles irritatingly obscure important bits of content; it's pre-punk, semi-Beatnik surrealism that never really went out of style. Despite nearly five decades of boundary-blurring conceptualism, high-profile curatorial efforts, celebrated scholarship, and coveted accolades (such as last month's receipt of the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the Venice Biennale) people keep coming back to the dots. But while this new survey of Baldessari's epic print portfolio certainly delivers the hits, the real treats are the rarely exhibited b-sides.

Shana Nys Dambrot