Nomadic Library

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From his early text-and-image paintings to his more recent photo collages and installations, Baldessari has continued to make art that addresses the social impact of mass culture, often playfully through strategies of appropriation and deconstruction. Baldessari’s lifelong interest in language, written and visual, and the interaction between the two, raises questions about the nature of communication and perception. More than 400 illustrations are presented in full colour in this monograph published in conjunction with a major exhibition organised by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and Tate Modern in London. Eleven essays by critics, curators, art historians, and an artist and former student of Baldessari’s round out this volume. Few contemporary artists have achieved the range and relevance of Baldessari’s oeuvre, which is finally given its due in this elegant retrospective book. Despite the importance of New Documents for posterity, no catalogue was produced at the time. Arbus, Friedlander, Winogrand: New Documents, 1967 marks the exhibition's 50th anniversary and presents for the first time, in full-page reproductions, the 94 photographs that hung on the walls of MoMA, freshly contextualized with an abundance of archival material. Essays by curator Sarah Hermanson Meister and photographer and critic Max Kozloff, who originally reviewed the exhibition for The Nation in 1967, shed new light on the enduring significance of the exhibition and on the legacy of these three essential artists.