John Baldessari | Teaching A Plant The Alphabet
From Saturday 16 August 2025
To Sunday 26 October 2025
BRAG is proud to present John Baldessari: Teaching A Plant The Alphabet, a solo exhibition showcasing Baldessari’s iconic 1972 conceptual artwork of the same name. This exhibition will mark the first-ever presentation of Baldessari’s work in Western Australia, highlighting his global impact on conceptually-driven art and its connection to local artistic practices.
Teaching A Plant The Alphabet is a key example of conceptual art, exploring ideas around language, the nature of learning, and how we understand the more-than-human world. This exhibition situates Baldessari’s work in dialogue with conceptual and semiotic art practices that have evolved in Western Australia, offering visitors the opportunity to explore the connections between international conceptualism and regional art.
The Teaching A Plant The Alphabet exhibition will open on Friday, 15 August, alongside two complementary shows: Futile Gestures, an exhibition of new works by West Australian artist Sam Bloor, and To The Letter, a collection of text-based works drawn from the City of Bunbury Art Collection. Together, these three exhibitions explore themes of language, signage, and meaning-making, creating a unique dialogue across contemporary and historical practices.
John Baldessari
John Baldessari was born in National City, California in 1931. He received his Bachelor of Arts in 1953 from San Diego State College. After a year of advanced art history studies at the University of California, Berkley, Baldessari returned to San Diego State College where he received his Master of Arts in Painting in 1957. He proceeded to engage in post-graduate work at Chouinard Art Institute and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Baldessari taught at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA from 1970-1988 and UCLA 1996-2007.
Baldessari’s artwork has been featured in more than 300 solo exhibitions and in over 1000 group exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. His projects include unique works, prints, artist books, videos, films, billboards and public works. His awards and honors include the 2014 National Medal of Arts Award, an award from the International Print Center New York in 2016, memberships in the American Academy of Arts and Letters and in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Americans for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award, the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, awarded by La Biennale di Venezia, the City of Goslar Kaiserring in 2012, and the BACA International 2008. He has received honorary degrees from the National University of Ireland, San Diego State University and Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design. He currently lives and works in Venice, California.
Recently Museo Jumex held a retrospective titled Learning to Read with John Baldessari, in Mexico City, 2017. Editions have been showcased at Gemini G.E.L. and Mixografia in Los Angeles, CA 2017-2019, and the Laguna Museum of Art in 2019. Mai 36 showcased a series of unique works titled Windmills in Zurich, Switzerland 2018. Marian Goodman exhibited a series of unique works titled Hot & Cold Series, in New York 2019. John Baldessari Catalogue Raisonné, Volume Five: 2005-2010 was published by Yale University Press in 2018, Volume Six 2011-2019 in 2021.
John Baldessari passed away on 2 January 2020 in his Venice (Los Angeles, California) home.
John Baldessari portrait by Hedi Slimane, 2011. Photograph and biography courtesy of The Estate of John Baldessari.
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A Brief History of John Baldessari - The epic life of a world-class artist, jammed into six minutes. Narrated by Tom Waits. Commissioned by LACMA for their first annual Art + Film Gala honouring John Baldessari and Clint Eastwood. Directed by Henry Joost & Ariel Schulman, edited by Max Joseph, written by Gabriel Nussbaum, cinematography by Magdalena Gorka & Henry Joost, produced by Mandy Yaeger & Erin Wright.
Image: John Baldessari portrait by Manfredi Gioacchini, 2015. Photograph courtesy of The Estate of John Baldessari.