John Baldessari: “I will not make anymore boring art”

John Anthony Baldessari is an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lives and works in Santa Monica and Venice in California. Initially a painter, Baldessari began to incorporate texts and photography into his canvases in the mid-1960s. In 1970 he began working in printmaking, film, video, installation, sculpture and photography.

In 1970, Baldessari and some friends burnt all of the paintings he had created between 1953 and 1966 as part of a new piece, titled The Cremation Project. The ashes from these paintings were baked into cookies resulting in an art installation consisting of a bronze plaque with the destroyed paintings’ birth and death dates, as well as the recipe for making the cookies. Through this project, Baldessari draws a connection between artistic practice and the human life cycle. This project highlights as he quotes ‘no more boring art’ which i believe is very interesting. I like the way in which he incorporates a social event in the creation of this art which appears to have been fun and exciting. This comes under the theme of ‘play’ in the way they’re playing with the existing art to create a new piece. He has many other ‘playful’ projects however this one stood out to me because of the extent he went to and also the meaning it has being it too.

In this video, Baldessari makes many arm movements, reciting the phrase, “I am making art,” after each gesture. Baldessari has always been conscious of the power of choice in artistic practice. Here, he carefully associates the choice of arm movements with the artistic choices that an artist may make, concluding that choice is a form of art in itself. Another way in which this piece can be interpreted is a reaction to artists in the late 1960s and early 1970s that explored the use of their own bodies and gestures as an art medium.