More Than You Wanted to Know About John Baldessari. Vol. 1

Baldessari’s writingsnThe texts in this two-volume set trace the development of John Baldessari’s understanding of art from the early 1960s through to the present. This volume, spanning 1957 to 1974, includes numerous never-before-published texts as well as texts that illustrate Baldessari’s compositions of words, which achieve both literary and graphic impact. In a pared-down style that is more practical than aesthetic, Baldessari writes by turns as a storyteller, moralist, teacher, and occasional gadfly, using whatever form is needed to accomplish what the artist describes as the central task of art making: to communicate in a way that people can understand. When describing his writing Baldessari is typically concise and profound, “I never say edifice when building would do.” He never underestimates his audience or the amount of information already in the world.