John Baldessari was born in National City, California. He attended San Diego State University and did post-graduate work at Otis Art Institute, Chouinard Art Institute and the University of California at Berkeley. He taught at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, CA from 1970 - 1988 and the University of California at Los Angeles from 1996 - 2007.

His artwork has been featured in more than 200 solo exhibitions and in over 900 group exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe. His projects include artist books, videos, films, billboards and public works. His awards and honors include 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 California Governor's Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Visual Arts, the Oscar Kokoschka Prize, the “Spectrum” Internationaler Preis für Fotografie, 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.

Baldessari’s recent projects include solo shows in New York, Europe, and Los Angeles; books; films; a curatorial project at the Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum in Washington D.C.; and retrospectives at the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien in Vienna, Austria (2005), the Kunsthaus Graz in Graz, Austria (2005), and at the Carré d’Art, Musée d'Art Contemporain in Nimes, France (2005). Upcoming exhibitions include Museum Haus Lange in Krefeld, Germany, Cristina Guerra Contemporary Art in Lisbon, Galerie Greta Meert in Brussels, Mai 36 in Zurich, and a traveling retrospective that will begin at the Tate Modern in London in 2009 and travel to the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, the Los Angles County Museum of Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from 2010-2011.