Latest John Baldessari Quotes from Interviews

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• That should be the goal for all art, to be as simple as a flashcard.

  John Baldessari

  Art, Simple, Goal

  Interview with David Salle, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 09, 2013.

• 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.

  John Baldessari

  Ideas, Vaudeville, Flaws

  Interview with David Salle, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 09, 2013.

• I can't imagine a life without thinking, doing art. I don't feel any need to be a world traveler or an adventurer. I'm very happy doing what I'm doing. I think somehow I know that I should have a larger vision of art, but I can't think of what that would be.

  John Baldessari

  Art, Thinking, Should Have

  Interview with David Salle, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 09, 2013.

• 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

  Window, Felt, Dickens

  Interview with David Salle, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 09, 2013.

• 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

  Thinking, Want, Kind

  Interview with David Salle, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 09, 2013.

• 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

  Art, Ideas, Green

  Interview with David Salle, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 09, 2013.

• 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.

  John Baldessari

  Art, Doctors, Sick

• If you're smart, you abandon the things that didn't work out so well, and you enlarge upon the things that seem to be successful.

  John Baldessari

  Smart, Successful, Work Out

  Interview with David Salle, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 9, 2013.

• I think art, if it's meaningful at all, is a conversation with other artists. You say something, they say something, you move back and forth.

  John Baldessari

  Meaningful, Art, Moving

  Interview with David Salle, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 9, 2013.

• Most of my friends are women. I think women are more interesting to talk to.

  John Baldessari

  Thinking, Interesting, My Friends

• 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

  Art, Thinking, People

• 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?

  John Baldessari

  Why Not, Definitions, Normal

  Interview with David Salle, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 9, 2013.

• I go back and forth between wanting to be abundantly simple and maddeningly complex.

  John Baldessari

  Simple, Back And Forth, Complexes

  Interview with David Salle, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 9, 2013.

• 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

  Trying, World, Littles

  Interview with David Salle, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 9, 2013.

• It's human desire to be understood. And we always feel we're not understood.

  John Baldessari

  Desire, Feels, Understood

  Interview with David Salle, www.interviewmagazine.com. October 9, 2013.