John Baldessari: The End of the Line

Text, photography, appropriated imagery and sly visual disruptions trace John Baldessari’s challenge to conventional ideas about art and authorship. On view August 20 through May 9 at Pérez Art Museum Miami, The End of the Line is the first major South Florida survey devoted to the influential conceptual artist. The exhibition brings together approximately 40 paintings, photographs, videos and installations, drawn largely from the collection of Craig Robins, a close friend and longtime supporter of Baldessari’s work.

The presentation follows Baldessari’s shift from painting toward a practice built around language, serial photography and images collected from film, television and print media. Highlights include work connected to his 1970 Cremation Project, in which he destroyed much of his earlier output, and I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art, his well-known critique of the art establishment. His frequent use of brightly colored circles to conceal faces and details became one of the defining devices of his later work.

Baldessari also influenced generations of artists through decades of teaching at the California Institute of the Arts and the University of California, Los Angeles. The exhibition considers both his role in shaping conceptual art and his enduring interest in how words and images construct meaning.