John Baldessari: Peter Plagens looks back on John Baldessari's first one-man shows in Los Angeles (Molly Barnes) and New York (Feigen) in 1968. (First Break).(Brief Article)

JOHN BALDESSARI--"the world's tallest leprechaun," as denizens of an earlier LA art world used to call him affectionately--has been so prominent, so wry, so even-tempered, and so unselfish a presence on the scene for so long that it's difficult to realize that even he needed a break to get his career off the ground.

Back in the late '60s, Baldessari recalls, "I was teaching at Southwest Community College in Chula Vista, but I still had to have other 'odd jobs,' and teaching at the UCLA extension in San Diego was one of them. The new UC, San Diego, campus decided it was ...

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