John Baldessari | Madame Cézanne’s Hairdos

July 20 - September 2, 2017
First Thursday Reception: August 6, 6 - 8pm

John Baldessari playfully explores the dislocation between context and image. His vibrant wit and unclassifiable oeuvre over the past 50 years include painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture and video. Baldessari’s latest series of prints titled Madame Cézanne’s Hairdos were inspired by his visit to the Madame Cézanne exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2015. Baldessari fixed his interest on the hairstyles of Paul Cézanne’s muse, Hortense Fiquet. Baldessari transforms images of the evolving hairstyles of Cézanne’s muse by isolating and exaggerating the shape and scale of her hair. He transforms them into highly graphic, flattened geometries aptly titled Cone, Cube, Octagon, Oval Pyramid, Rhomboid, Sphere, and Trapezoid. Baldessari’s delightfully wry series re-imagines the familiar to encourage fresh interpretation and elicit new ways of looking.

John Baldessari’s work is included in numerous public collections around the globe including Musée d'Art Contemporain Lyon (Lyon, France), Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), Tate Britain (London, England) and the Gallery of Modern Art (Brisbane, Australia).