120 works including paintings, photo and text assemblages, large-scale installations, videos and artists books produced between 1962 and 2010 will be on display. From manipulated Hollywood film stills and performance art videos to pop photo collages and hybrid sculptures, the breadth of Baldessari’s skill and inquisitiveness has no modern equivalent.
     Marla Prather, Senior Consultant in the Met’s Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art writes, “His work appeals on so many levels. It’s cerebral, informed by years of reading fiction, philosophy, history and of course, watching movies. Yet the work is also very accessible and often quite funny… This is one of the most impressive aspects of John’s career — his remarkable versatility and the ability to renew his art year after year in unexpected ways.”
     Baldessari’s most recent work is no exception, Noses & Ears and Arms & Legs find him narrowing his scope, isolating body parts so they can be examined simply and singularly within the composition. Two multimedia installations involving photography, sculpture, and video were also created specifically for the exhibit. Pure Beauty is notable for its combination of seminal and lesser known works, but it’s John Baldessari’s innate curiosity, artistic fearlessness, and endless drive to mix things up that epitomize the title of this retrospective.

Pure Beauty runs from October 20, 2010-January 9, 2011 at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.