John Baldessari: Sculptures

John Baldessari is best known for the deadpan collisions of image and language that shaped his approach to conceptual art, but sculpture ran through his practice as well. Sculptures at Sprüth Magers Los Angeles turns to this three-dimensional side of his work, bringing together projects that play with physical space, scale, and the expectations attached to familiar objects.

Among them is Beethoven’s Trumpet (With Ear) Opus #133 from 2007, an oversized ear and trumpet installation that transforms a visual joke into something visitors physically encounter in the room. Across the exhibition, Baldessari’s humor moves off the flat surface, using enlarged forms and spatial relationships to extend questions that occupied him throughout his career.