John Baldessari at Marian Goodman Gallery

John Baldessari, Double Play:  Never Swat a Fly, 2012.
John Baldessari, Double Play: Never Swat a Fly, 2012.

Conceptual artist John Baldessari pairs song lyrics with images abstracted from canonical paintings in his latest series of paintings.  The odd angle of this deer’s head gives its source away as an 1867 hunting scene by Gustave Courbet.  The hunt looks more comical than gruesome in Baldessari’s version, though on reflection maybe both deer and fly should be spared. (At Marian Goodman Gallery, 57th Street, through Nov 21).