Probably one of the worst things that happened to photography is that cameras have viewfinders. John Baldessari More Quotes by John Baldessari More Quotes From John Baldessari That should be the goal for all art, to be as simple as a flashcard. John Baldessari goalsimpleart Most of my friends are women. I think women are more interesting to talk to. John Baldessari my-friendsinterestingthinking Find the most puzzling kind of art you can think of, and then go out and try to approximate it with your camera. Take a photograph that corresponds to it. (Assignment to students.) John Baldessari tryingartthinking I didn't see painters doing paintings of glassware and glass shelves or sand dunes and receding snow fences. Why does that interest photographers and not artists? John Baldessari glassesartistsnow I think I live such a boring life. But I can't imagine any other kind of life, so I guess it's the life I want. John Baldessari kindwantthinking I always felt like I was right out of Dickens, looking in the window of the Christmas feast, but not at the feast. John Baldessari dickensfeltwindow The idea was to take fine art and put it into the location of the movie scripts. The script itself is collage - some of the lines come from actual movies and I've written others to make the text work with the found image. In this way, the details of old dead guys' paintings (from the collection of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, where this work will be exhibited in relation to the historical paintings) become illustrations of the movie scripts. I found this mélange of high art and Hollywood amusing. John Baldessari illustrationmuseumsart Ideally I would like the work to be a hybrid between painting and photography. John Baldessari hybridpaintingphotography It's human desire to be understood. And we always feel we're not understood. John Baldessari understooddesirefeels I was teaching live drawing in a community college and students started zoning in on the face and spending a couple of hours on that and then putting the rest of the body on the face only in the last hour. It didn't work to just tell them, 'Well, you're really not thinking of the body as a totality.' So in desperation I would put a drape over the model's head so they couldn't see it. They had to draw the body and then at the end of the session for an hour I would take the drape off just to try to reverse their procedure. John Baldessari coupleteachingthinking What I try to do is reinvigorate strategies and clichés I find in Hollywood movies. At a certain point I had these huge folders, each one classified according to subject matter or genre: people with guns, people kissing, Indians and cowboys falling off horses, getting shot, getting shot with arrows - almost every plot device. Then I cropped the cheap, recycled imagery to give exhausted images new meaning, or at least something other than their original meaning. I'm basically reassembling atoms to give them a meaning that's more au courant. John Baldessari horsekissingfall I think the term 'conceptual art' is a useful term for writers, a basket to put people in, like Pop Art or Impressionism or whatever. John Baldessari peopleartthinking A lot of ideas don't translate very well into art. To say, "Oh my god, the grass is green ..." You're going to end up with a big green painting. John Baldessari greenideasart I want to produce images that startle one into recollection. John Baldessari recollectionproducewant That word 'funny' always makes me feel uncomfortable. Because if I were trying to be funny, I would be something like Bill Wegman - he really tries to be funny. I don't try to be funny. It's just that I feel the world is a little bit absurd and off-kilter, and I'm sort of reporting. John Baldessari feelmefunnyworld I guess I get bored easily, and thank God. I don't want to all my life pound only the same key, although some artists do it very effectively. I'm not trying to denigrate anybody. John Baldessari my-lifethank-godgodlife When I went to art school, I was just having fun. I realised that was the last chance I had, and then I would have to get a job. John Baldessari jobchanceartschool
