Having taught many generations of Los Angeles artists, John Baldessari proudly displays a few of their creations on the walls of his large studio in Venice. One piece, by Analia Saban, consists of white paper cleverly made to look like a stained gym towel.

Its wry humor is in the Baldessari vein. But fans of this famously off-kilter, boundary-pushing conceptual artist might be more surprised to find hanging above his desk a perfectly balanced still life by a more traditional painter: a serene little image in muted browns and grays by the 20th-century Italian master Giorgio Morandi, showing a fluted vase flanked by jars and boxes.

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/