53 Quotes by John Baldessari

The idea of vaudeville clowns and court jesters is always to show the flaw, to point out what’s not working and why it’s not coherent.

Well, why is this art? Why isn’t that art?

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.

If I saw the art around me that I liked, then I wouldn’t do art.

I was always interested in language. I thought, why not? If a painting, by the normal definition of the term, is paint on canvas, why can’t it be painted words on canvas?

I used to jokingly say, “I don’t teach art. I’m an art doctor.” Students come to me and say, “My art’s sick,” and we help them make it well.

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?

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.