More Than You Wanted to Know about John Baldessari

Book excerpt: More Than You Wanted to Know About John Baldessari is the first complete collection of the writings of artist John Baldessari. Edited and with essays by Meg Cranston and Hans Ulrich Obrist, the texts in this two-volume set trace the development of Baldessari's understanding of art from the early 1960s through to the present, and includes an extended interview with the artist on the subject of his writing.The collection also includes numerous never-before-published texts as well as facsimiles of the original documents that illustrate Baldessari's composition of words, which achieve both literary and graphic impact.Baldessari's writing addresses a broad range of topics from the problem of colour in sculpture, to the problem of art students who need ideas, to the problem of money in the art world, while returning throughout to the very focused set of issues that are key to his own work.Principle among them is Baldessari's love of words and his long-standing investigation into the similarity and possible interchangeability of word and image.Also availableJohn Baldessari: More Than You Wanted to Know About John Baldessari. Volume 1 (9783037641927)