The Metropolitan Museum had an event for William Society members recent--a very nice way to see an exhibibt. The museum is closed, members are given wine and nuts, a curator talks and after everyone descends to the level of the exhibit and views it, able to ask the curator any questions that come to mind.
Baldessari is a California conceptual artist who has worked and taught for fifty years and is well known to those who study and appreciate such things. He has won numerous awards including a Golden Lion for lifetime achievment at the Venice Biennialle. Sometimes what appears to be a comment is the title of a picture, and sometimes it is the picture. Or the artist's input is the idea of the picture. In one series amateur and weekend artists were asked to select from a group of pictures by Baldessari and then paint them. In another series his wife threw a series of colored panels from an upper window in his house, and he photographed them. Such pieces make one consider not only what is art but what is the role of the artist.
I can't resist also wondering, if I lived with this and walked by it every day for month, would I see any more in it the thirtieth time than the first? We all have our personal definitions of "great" art. One of mine is that it holds my interest beyond the first viewing. I do not have to like it, but I do want it pull at me.
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