About Art Itself Itself

Surely both the title — “John Baldessari: Pure Beauty†— and its location (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) are ironic. There is very little traditionally beautiful or even pretty art on display in this show in a museum notably cool to modern and postmodern art.

   Organized by the Tate Modern in London, where it was first shown, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where it later hung, the show brings to the Met an 80-year-old contrarian artist who is all about conceptualism, art-about-art (demanding a viewer participate in giving meaning to a work), serialism, often ordinary subjects and photographs used in new ways.

   It is also about California, where Baldessari was born and has taught and worked all his life. It’s as if he has never left the state. The essence of California light and living in all its strangeness are in many of the pieces. Even the specially painted, 25-foot canvas in the museum lobby is of a palm tree against the unique blue of the California ocean.

   Baldessari’s use of chance and mundane serial images to make art hits you early in the show with a wonderful, quietly powerful “The backs of all trucks passed while driving from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, California, Sunday, 20 January 1963.†It is just that: 32 small color photographs arranged in a grid (one of the artist’s favorite formats) that is simple and singular. Why it works I don’t know, but it is one of my favorites.

   The artist as teacher, which he was until late fame allowed him to earn a living from his art, is seen in an overpainted photograph from 1968, “The Spectator is Compelled ….†We see a man from the back standing in the middle of a palm-lined street in National City (Baldessari’s hometown south of San Diego) with buildings in the distance. It is a lesson in single-point perspective: the buildings seem closer than they are.

   One of his most famous works came in 1969,when he commissioned other artists to paint fingers pointing at objects and in situations they chose.  This was a droll reproof to Al Held, the abstract artist, who famously declared “All conceptual art is just pointing at things.†And in two examples in the show, we see that it can be.

   Baldessari began using still photographs from “B†movies in his work because they were cheap. In the 1980s these became the bases for photo-compositions. The intriguing “Kiss/Panic†from 1984 is a montage of 10 black-and-white frames of hands holding revolvers surrounding two other stills: a horizontal shot of a two people kissing and a black-and-white shot of a riot. Are the guns protecting or threatening the lovers? And does love cause the panic?

   By 1986 the artist was overpainting faces in his movie montages with brightly colored geometric shapes, emphasizing action and content over personality. In “Bloody Sundae†gangsters and molls tumble onto each other like ingredients in the ice cream favorite of the title. “Three Red Paintings†are situated at angles to each other letting us create a narrative linking all three.

   Baldessari’s stories are made through juxtaposition and structure rather than linear progression. Movie stills taken out of context and arranged in a new structure tell a new story. And we write that story. There are no artist inflections here. Only the concept.

      In the end “Pure Beauty†is about art itself and the rigor of making it. It is also about an artist who insists on the random, the ordinary, chance and opportunity. It will not be a show for everyone. But with patient, slow viewing, you will see the world — and maybe art itself — a little differently. I loved it.

     “John Baldessari: Pure Beauty†is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through Jan. 9. For information, go to www.Metmuseum.org.