Rise of Rebellion: DailyServing’s latest week-long series

Today, Bean Gilsdorf looks at some of the artists that have broken the art world’s mold in her latest article Rebellion, Four Ways, as a continuation of our week-long series Rise of Rebellion.

Not long ago I had a conversation with a fellow artist.  “I’m thirty years old,” she said, “and I’ve never really rebelled.”  We talked about what rebellion means; it turns out that while I was imagining the traditional route of sex/drugs/rock-n-roll, she had something tamer in mind: “I was thinking about not bathing for a while.”  I admit that I laughed out loud.

She and I were both thinking about social nonconformity in general, yet there are forms of revolt more specific to art and its milieu.  True rebellion is a personal action, a stance to take against the machination of a system whether overt or hidden.  When people talk about “the art world” they refer specifically to the capitalist market-driven system of exchange that takes place in the slim area of overlap between makers, dealers, and buyers.  It’s a system of production and consumption like many others that relies on indoctrination, social pressure, and buy-in to a set of assumptions.  In order to succeed in this world artists must play the game and follow the rules—all very insidious in a field that is purported to be about freedom and expression.  Winners learn to play well and are rewarded for running within the confines of the maze and pressing the lever at the end. But the “art world” is not art, and never should the two be confused.  Below are some of the tacit rules of the art world and the iconoclasts who break them.  Consider this food for thought.

Paul Chan, The laws are my whores (2009). Suite of nine drawings, charcoal on paper, 39.5 x 27.5 inches each.

Paul Chan, Oh why so serious? (2008). Plastic and electronics, computer keyboard, 3.25 x 18.5 x 8 inches.

Paul Chan, Waiting for Godot (2007). Performance view, South Ward, New Orleans.

1.) Make all your work recognizable.  A body of work is consistent and easily identified.

You’re a brand, and if you want to sell you need to make your brand instantly recognizable—just like a Louis Vuitton handbag or an Apple computer.  Tell that to Paul Chan, the 37 year-old auteur of videos, sculpture, drawings, paintings, light projections, computer fonts, and the co-stager of five site-specific performances of “Waiting for Godot” in post-Katrina New Orleans.  There is no “recognizable” here, no direct sense of continuity from show to show or even piece to piece; if you didn’t read the wall label you might not know who made the work.  There is only a joy of making; freedom of expression, indeed.

Cady Noland, SLA #4 (1990). Silkscreen on aluminum, edition 4/4, 78 3/8 x 60 5/8 x 3/8 inches.

2.) Promote your brand incessantly: lectures, residencies, studio visits, and visiting-professor gigs will help you advance.

It’s true that for most artists there is a social context to the work: after all, if no one knows what you make, how will they know if they like it or not?  But is it true that one must exploit every connection, every opportunity, every possible avenue for social growth to create a career in the arts?  Ask Cady Noland…oh, but you can’t.  The reclusive artist won’t answer your email and won’t work with you if you she doesn’t trust you. Despite her many successes, Noland dropped out of the art world; self-promotion is not a game that she plays.  In a 1994 review of Noland’s work, critic David Bussel wrote with keen prescience, “Anyone can be made into a hero or villain because minor celebrity is just another disposable object of mass consumption.”  Despite Noland’s reticence to engage with the public, her work continues to be in demand.

Dana Schutz, Blind Foot Massage (2009). Oil and acrylic on canvas, 36.25 x 34 inches.

3.) Hit the big time: get rich, develop a waiting list, and hire a cadre of laborers to keep up with the demand.

(Bonus points if your laborers live in “developing” countries and you make this part of your schtick.)  This is the model proposed by Andy Warhol and adopted by Jeff Koons.  Some, like Kehinde Wiley and Takeshi Murakami, even make it an overt part of their practice to manage a hive of workers.  In the overheated atmosphere of the art world, it’s easy to think that the artist who doesn’t meet the production quota dictated by collectors is a species of failure.  It is said that Dana Schutz makes all her own paintings (unconfirmed by her gallery at the time of this publication), waiting list be damned.  For an artist of her stature to do so is a very passionate and hopeful gesture, proof that rebellion isn’t always some kind of adolescent sneer: sometimes it’s just sticking to one’s principles.

Marina Abramović, The Artist is Present, (2010). Performance at MOMA, New York.

4.) Be famous, get old, drop out.

You’ve got enough money, and maybe university tenure.  This is the time to take it easy: make work that just repeats your best years ad nauseum, or even stop working altogether.  Disproving this are John Baldessari and Marina Abramović, who continue to work hard and push beyond previous limits.  Baldessari is 79 years old; in the last five years he designed the exhibition Magritte and Contemporary Art, had strong new work at his show at Sprüth Magers (Berlin) earlier this year, and currently has a long-overdue retrospective, Pure Beauty, at LACMA.  Abramović, now 64, describes herself as “the grandmother of performance art.”  Performing The Artist is Present this past spring at MOMA, she asserted the right and privilege of the artist to continue to explore her own work, to mine it and delve ever-deeper into unknown territory.  This is the benefit of utilizing a lifetime of knowledge, growth, and experience to make innovative art.  May we all be so blessed.

Rise of Rebellion: DailyServing’s latest week-long series

As we continue our week long series Rise of Rebellion, we take a look at the cyclical nature of conflict and growth through the work of Philip Guston and the wisdom of Peter Clemenza in our latest article by Andrew Tosiello.

Philip Guston. "Oasis", 1957. Oil on Canvas. 61.5 x 68 in.

To be perfectly honest, I’m probably the last person who should be writing about rebellion. Not only am I beginning to comfortably occupy a full-time job and its attendant material security, but it has been a long time (if ever) since I’ve really stuck it to the man. More importantly and the main reason that this essay begins as quasi-apology (to the reader and the editors) is that, truth be told, I’m not fully convinced by rebellion as an effective strategy for wholesale change. (Sorry Daily Serving. I hope this won’t negatively impact future writing opportunities!)

It’s not that I don’t want to believe in rebellion, believe me. I do. In my heart I long for uprising and the final, decisive casting off of oppression after intense struggle —I’m a romantic. Unfortunately, that desire just doesn’t seem to be sustainable when I really consider it.

Rebellion, to me, suggests a fight against an existing system with the goal of toppling it and replacing it for good. It’s a dialectical process with teleological implications. Revolutions aren’t aiming for half-measures, they’re not seeking compromises and they certainly don’t anticipate their own downfall at the hands of future insurgents. Rebellion’s appeal lies in its all-in quality. It provides a sense of security about one’s (hell, the world’s) destiny being within one’s power and that it will be that way forever.

I want to make it clear that I don’t think that standing up for what’s right isn’t necessary or justified. It is. I do want to draw a distinction, though between protest and rebellion. In many ways, they’re similar, but they’re not the same. Where protest seeks to modify a system, rebellion seeks to overthrow one; consign it to the dustbin of history. Protest stands a chance of working (and has worked) and of producing lasting change. Rebellion, well, you know where I stand.

Philip Guston. "Daydreams", 1970. Oil on Linen. 180.0 x 203.5 cm

In 1970, Philip Guston debuted his now famous figurative paintings at the Marlborough Gallery. It was a shocking turn from pure abstraction by one of its most respected practitioners. It was enough of a rebellion for Hilton Kramer to title his review of the show “A Mandarin Pretending To Be A Stumblebum,” and for Marlborough to drop him from its roster. Yet, Guston described the change in his work as resulting from a sense of moral duty to directly engage with the world and its politics.

It would be foolish to try and cast Guston in the role of a revolutionary leader striking a blow for figuration and then to discredit him by pointing to the failure of Neo-Expressionism as a lasting movement. Guston’s rebellion was purely a personal one, it would seem and he can’t be blamed for those he inspired. Of course, this myth of the rebel Guston can be deflated when the fact that those late paintings were a return to his earliest themes and had developed out of his experience making his lyrical abstractions. Additionally, his late paintings did not render hollow his previous work, but rather strengthened it by suggesting the existence of those same themes, only submerged or sublimated in paint. Guston was not a rebel, but someone committed to growth, no matter what the cost. This growth, of course, was achieved only through struggle, but not one which was aimed at toppling or overthrowing, but building and enriching.

This is one view of a productive, if not rebellious, engagement with struggle against established modes. As the two sons of Vito Corleone plan the first salvo in an inevitable mob war in Mario Puzo’s The Godfather, the fat caporegime Peter Clemenza tells them, “These things have to happen once every ten years or so. It gets rid of the bad blood.” This sentiment not only proves Clemenza’s veteran status, having endured previous conflagrations, but presents an anti-romantic view of such struggles, assigning them no more purpose than to relieve building tensions. It is an odd sentiment in a book that valorizes violence and decisive action as means to achieving one’s destiny.

Clemenza’s comment demonstrates an understanding of this war not as a part of a teleological process, leading to a final, lasting resolution, but an unending, though productive, cycle of strife and peace. In contrast to the sons who see war as fated and fraught with unalterable consequence, Clemenza views it as an almost neutral occurrence with little lasting effect.

Rather than seeing art through the eyes of Clement Greenberg who saw a history of rebellions leading to a final purity, one can imagine a series of struggles which purge bad blood, produce new alliances, allow for new ideas and subtle change. It seems to be both realistic and hopeful, but it isn’t rebellion.

Rise of Rebellion: DailyServing’s latest week-long series

Today on DS, we look at the desire and longing for rebellion embedded in the work of Nan Goldin, Larry Clark, Dash Snow and Ryan McGinley. Check out how the acts captured in these artists’ work become an icon for a generation desperate for a more rebellious lifestyle.

Nan Goldin. Joana with Valerie and Reine in the Mirror, L'Hotel des Beaux Arts, Paris, 1999.

Thinking back to the days of being a rebellious teenager make me want to run the other direction. There is nothing worse than revisiting the angst and discomfort of adolescence – my mild rebellious behavior and general dislike of the world around me. Rebellious acts always seem mediocre and immature to me these days, despite living a very 20-something lifestyle. But there have always been those artists that so tactfully ride the line between a perfectly composed yet rebellious life that I inherently envy. I find it fascinating to watch the career of artists who successfully make work that is both personal and universal, unruly and conforming, attractive and disgusting – who document their own outsider world and show our distance to it.

Dash Snow. "TBT", 2008. Photograph - Digital C Print 40 x 60 inches (101.6 x 151.8 cm) + frame Edition of 3 + 2AP. Courtesy of Peres Projects.

This rebel has long been the muse of the artist. And when I consider the muse, Nan Goldin and Larry Clark’s use and abuse of the rebellious lifestyle become both personal document and cultural reality, while assuming the roll of Art Historical mainstay in the category of the documentary photograph. But Dash Snow, a true example of both insider and outsider, straddled this relationship and found a way to make the chaos of his life appear both seductive and desirable. A hero of punk culture, Snow’s rebellious history and lifestyle was the subject and an embodiment of his work – both personal anthem and documentation. Snow sold his own context, using his life as a guarantee of credibility and reality to the outside world, by choosing to participate in the contemporary art system, yet his product was a life through the photographic document.

Both “genius” and tortured soul, Snow’s lifestyle was muse and product- and ultimately it was his rebellious lifestyle that brought him to an early death. Ryan McGinley equally rides this ambiguous line, to the point that I can’t decide if his work is rebellious or utopian. There is something about the idealized reality in his work that harks back to the personal documentation of Clark and Goldin, but successfully sells his own contemporary youthful lifestyle.

Ryan McGinley, Coley (Injured), 2007

The act of rebellion doesn’t always lead you in the opposing path of the system or lifestyles that it moves against. And, often the very thought or association of rebellion becomes so desirable to the masses because it appears to be simply out of their grasp. All of these artists have successfully depicted their own rebellious lifestyle and have offered this spirit back to a complacent public that longs for the moment to  give up the boredom that fills their normal lives and grab onto the freedom that is falsely associated with rebellion.

Colin Quashie’s recently completed mural, entitled Service, focuses on the intricacy of interactions between art and politics in a complex, expressive artwork commissioned by the University of North Carolina’s School of Government. Noted as a controversial artist, Quashie, based in Charleston, South Carolina, undertook the completion of this project sustained by the patronage of the Local Government Federal Credit Union. The painting commemorates the contributions of African Americans to North Carolina’s local history, and addresses omissions from popular cultural memory. The circumstances of this image, and its commission offer a rich opportunity for social commentary and a dialogue on culture, race, reasoning, community, and the aesthetics of public memorials in America.

Although Service is presented as a traditional mural painting, its placement, combined with the artist’s contrived design motifs and the mural’s contextual cultural inferences, morphs the work’s significance away from being a “history painting” into a nexus of relevant political issues. Approximately 5’ high and 50’ long, the figures represented are rendered in thin, translucent oil glazes. Despite its concessions to the conventions of naturalistic figurative art, this work’s conceptual richness and informative, amusing, complexity make it more than a simple mural; it is a “conversation piece” in the very best sense of that term.

The ideas suggested in this work obliquely confront visitors to the ground floor dining room of the Knapp-Sanders Building on the Chapel Hill campus. Operating more like a satirically conceived installation rather than the simple mural, it coyly seeks to pacify us with a history painting, yet its complex ideas correspond with the socially critical and ironic implications associated with other works by Quashie, whose rambunctious contentions with our American culture often simultaneously entertain while interrogating the presumed motivations and assumptions of his audiences. Quashie seduces us into believing that this image is “safe” and the mural seems initially to offer few surprises: that is to say, it does the work that it was expected to do by representing a series of figures of historic significance. Service, however deals with more than simple appearances.

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All things considered Work of Art: The Next Great Artist was not nearly as bad as it could have been. In fact, the descriptor benign springs to my mind. I’m not going to lie, though – it was touch and go at the beginning. The first time I heard that a reality television show along the lines of “America’s Next Top Artist” was in the works, my stomach clenched a little. Of course the art world is predominantly a fickle, market-driven star system – but a reality television show? Will we so easily surrender all semblance of substance? Should we not maintain at least the veneer of scruples? I quickly dismissed the whole thing but several months later, I received an email from a curator friend announcing the premier of the show. In the subject heading she had typed simply, “It’s here.”

After watching all the episodes, however, I can honestly say I cringed not once. Not unlike Sarah Jessica Parker’s other little project you may have heard of, the most interesting aspect of the whole situation has been the fervor of criticism surrounding it. Regarding the critical hysteria surrounding Sex and the City 2, Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian noted, “a new army of bloggers has challenged and reinvigorated movie writing.” Similarly, the weekly examinations of Work of Art featured on various Web sites, including those of the participants themselves, and the ensuing conversations that have played out in the comment sections have been far more interesting that the actual show.

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On Day 5 of our latest week-long series, Summer of Utopia, we dive into the work of Michael Rakowitz, whose work has consistently interacted with the leveling of inequality or the recasting of a troubled history. As we take this week to consider how the art world uses or abuses the idea of utopia, one might be able to see how small steps to understanding our current social climate takes us just a little closer to an ideal world.

Joe Heywood's paraSITE shelter, 2000. Courtesy of Lombard-Freid Projects.

Despite our culture’s claim to equality, one cannot deny the social injustices that surround us. I doubt that anyone could see our society as utopian in any way, but somehow equalizing injustice and correcting histories seems to be one step closer to a perfect world. I will admit, I always find it interesting when artists directly interact with their own culture, and the history of Michael Rakowitz’s work does just that. For years, Rakowitz worked with the homeless to design structures that would use the wasted heat from ventilation systems to keep them warm. As his project paraSITE grew, each structure became more and more customized to the individual’s needs and desires. Each structure allowed for what the individual wanted – mobility, freedom and outdoor living – by using the discarded materials from the surrounding environment.

Davisons & Co. as a storefront on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, 2006. Courtesy of Michael Rakowitz.

In 2004, Rakowitz began his project Return, where he reopened his grandfather’s import and export store, Davidson & Co. Following his grandfather’s history of moving to New York in exile from Iraq as many Iraqi Jews have experienced, Rakowitz’s storefront allowed for people in the US to send items to their loved ones in Iraq – a simple gesture of facilitating connection across a great cultural divide. As the project developed, Rakowitz tested importing Iraqi goods to the US, despite the failing wartime infrastructure. Through a long and tedious exercise in patience and diplomacy, Rakowitz finally began selling Iraqi dates to his customers, connecting the displaced Iraqi citizens in New York with their memory and nostalgia for their home.

May the Arrogant not Prevail, 2010. Courtesy of Lombard-Freid Projects.

Rakowitz’s most recent project, May the Arrogant not Prevail, at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, recreates the Ishtar Gate which has become a tourist attraction for American soldiers in Iraq. The original Ishtar Gate was taken to Berlin in 1930 and now lives in the Pergamon Museum, leaving only a replica standing in Iraq today. Built out of Middle Eastern newspaper and packaging, Rakowitz’s replica rewrites the history of the gate with the detailed inclusion of the cultures’ sorted histories. Revisiting a structure with centuries of historical strife, May the Arrogant not Prevail seems to bring to mind the evidence of Iraq’s war-stricken past reminding us all that history is made by those who are in power. And, this new work just goes to show that our world will never reach utopia without paying attention to how we treat each other now.

Michael Rakowitz received a Masters in Visual Studies from MIT in 1998 and teaches at Northwestern University, and his recent projects have included a solo show at Tate Modern and Lombard-Freid Projects in New York.

Today on DailyServing, we have gone to our wonderful friends at the Huffington Post for a brilliant article on the Baldessari retrospective, Pure Beauty, at LACMA. LA-based arts writer, Rebecca Taylor, eloquently lists some of the lessons learned from the work on view.

John Baldessari, Pure Beauty 1966-68, acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of Baldessari Studio and Glenstone

1. It’s all relative, especially Beauty

I can’t imagine a more fitting title for Baldessari’s current retrospective (on view at LACMA through 12 September 2010) than Pure Beauty. The exhibition title references an early Baldessari work of the same name from 1966-68, an off-white canvas with the phrase literally painted in black, capital letters, and was explicitly selected by the artist himself. From the dawning of Greek Classicism to well beyond the Italian Renaissance, artists learned to faithfully master contrapposto, linear perspective, and the like in order to achieve the great, mythic aspiration of beauty. Room after room in the exhibition reminds the viewer of the ubiquitous, albeit trite, truth that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For example, in Choosing (A Game for Two Players): Carrots (1972), Baldessari asks two participants to impose their own aesthetic criteria upon a grouping of carrots (or green beans in the case of Choosing: Green Beans, 1971). As participants select the carrot that appeals most to them, said carrot is advanced to the next round and compared against two new carrots, and so on, and so forth. Ultimately this “faux exercise of taste,” as David Salle calls it, communicates the message that if there isn’t even consistency in scrutinizing a vegetable, how could we possibly impose a universal definition of beauty? Long-coveted, it continues to elude us.

2. The Rightness of Wrong

In 1996 art historian Abigail Solomon-Godeau penned the essay “The Rightness of Wrong” (1996) which praised Baldessari’s now infamous hybrid painting/photograph Wrong (1966-68) showing the artist purposefully disregarding the “rules” of photography and positioning himself in the shadow of a giant palm tree, that seems to emanate from his head, as he stands directly facing the camera in front of an ordinary tract home. Embracing “the wrong” extends well beyond this singular work and infiltrates Baldessari’s entire oeuvre, whether it’s circumventing the essence of a portrait by obliterating the face of the sitter (Portrait: Artist’s Identity Hidden with Various Hats, 1974) or using subliminal seduction – a la the panned low-art of advertising – to sell himself in his works (Embed Series: Ice Cubes: U-BUY BAL DES SSARI, 1974). Baldessari proves time and again that it’s right to be wrong.

3. Clement Greenberg doesn’t know it all

Baldessari’s Clement Greenberg (1966-68) quotes the critic’s canonical text: “ESTHETIC JUDGMENTS ARE GIVEN AND CONTAINED IN THE IMMEDIATE EXPERIENCE OF ART. THEY COINCIDE WITH IT; THEY ARE NOT ARRIVED AT AFTERWARDS THROUGH REFLECTION OR THOUGHT.” I couldn’t disagree more. What sets a work apart for me is not necessarily my initial reaction or experience – though I’m not discounting works who do pack an immediate punch, as they say – but that which infiltrates the subconscious and, in the words of Baldessari, “lingers in one’s mind.” One might liken it to the fleeting passion of puppy love, often brought on in an instant, versus the staying power of a genuine friendship, earned through time and manifestation.

John Baldessari, Heel (1986). Courtesy of Museum Associates/ LACMA

4. Banal ≠ boring

Whether arranging mundane objects in his studio according to their actual height (Alignment Series: Things in My Studio (by Height), 1975), throwing a ball in the air repeatedly to try and photograph the object in the center of the frame (Aligning: balls, 1972), methodically scribbling on a sheet of paper (I will not make any more boring art, 1971), or juxtaposing a vase of flowers with the apocalyptical text “There isn’t time” (Goya Series: There isn’t Time (1997), the ordinary becomes extraordinary when manipulated by the hands (or more accurately, the mind) of Baldessari. According to John, Sol Lewitt once told him that boredom is interesting when you work through it, and Baldessari has consistently proven this to be the case during his forty-plus year career.

5. Question what is not there with as much tenacity as you question what is there

Nam June Paik once explicated to Baldessari one of the most profound, and idiosyncratic, aspects of his work, saying that what he liked best about John’s work was what he left out. For example, in his Extended Corner series, Baldessari reproduces the exact measurements of famous canvases by Parmigianino, Bruegel, and other masters, but literally whites out the entire image, save a small rectangle in the corner. All that’s left of an epic battle scene or archetypal allegory is a small foot or corner of a building or table. Why does he negate all but the most, seemingly, trivial piece of visual information? In providing his viewer with only small, carefully selected pieces of information, Baldessari creates a conundrum for which there is no solution and allows the viewer the freedom to connect the dots and draw their own conclusions.

6. Always Rise from the Ashes

Baldessari’s work is infused with the notion that art comes out of failure and destroying things. He even describes his practice as reductive – “removing things until the work is nearly dead.” There’s no greater example than his landmark performative piece Cremation Project (1970), in which he formally ended his career as a painter. First, he gathered all the paintings he’d created prior to his photo-and-text compositions (meaning everything done before 1966) – save four he’d forgotten were in his sister’s garage -and had them cremated. In an affidavit published in the San Diego Union, Baldessari formally and publicly renounced painting in favor of a hands-off, post-studio approach. The ashes of the paintings were permanently immortalized in a book-shaped urn and a memorial plaque was commissioned declaring:

JOHN ANTHONY BALDESSARI
MAY 1953 MARCH 1966

John Baldessari (centre) overseeing Cremation Project 1970, from "Somebody to Talk To," by Jessica Morgan and John Baldessari, Tate Etc., Issue 17 / Autumn 2009.

7. Reject the stranglehold of the L.A. aesthetic, and all prevailing aesthetic authorities for that matter

The only thing consistent about Baldessari’s style is his inconsistency. He perpetually oscillates between color and black-and-white, large and small scale, text and image, etc. Beyond that, he defies simplistic categorizations. Is he a photographer or a painter? A performance or video artist? An installation or land artist? Yes, yes, and yes. Baldessari systematically rejected the pervasive L.A. style, oft called “the cool school,” and likewise rejected the philosophies of New York conceptualists Joseph Kosuth and Sol Lewitt, opting instead for his own unique visual language that defies categorization, but is irrefutably John Baldessari.

8. Viewership is active, not passive

Baldessari reminds the viewer of their importance in so many subtle ways throughout the exhibition, but most notably in A Painting That Is Its Own Documentation (1966-68), whereby the canvas is transformed into a work of art simply because it has been displayed and seen. For Baldessari, a viewer has a responsibility, not to consume images passively, but really look. In one of his iconic photo-and-text pieces, he reproduces the revered artforum (an issue with a painting by Frank Stella on the cover) and juxtaposes the magazine with a confusing edict that This is not to be looked at (1968). Baldessari, ever the contrarian, spins a tangled web with this diktat. Whether it’s a play on the meaning of image vs. object (a la Magritte), a call to “read” rather than simply look, or an autobiographical reference to his own isolation from the New York art world, the diversity of meanings and narratives derived from this “simple” juxtaposition have kept critics opining for years.

9. Irreverence is always in good order, even in regards to high art

“In the beginning, I asked myself ‘What would happen if I did this?’ and the work proceeded from there,” (Baldessari in conversation with Matthew Higgs at Frieze, 2009). This statement underscores the artist’s belief that the reason kids often make the best art is because it is made without the pretension that they’re doing “art.” Perhaps that is Baldessari’s greatest talent, humility in the face of fame and success, always making art that stems from a question rather than art for art’s sake. Indeed, Baldessari’s irreverence for the sanctity of art permeates his oeuvre, whether it be negating all but a corner of a Parmigianino masterpiece, mocking the great art critic Clement Greenberg with his own words, parodying the color-field painters by “floating” large rectangular blocks of color outside the second-story window of his home (Floating: Color, 1972), or pairing Goya’s catastrophic texts from his Disasters of War series with everyday objects like a paper clip.

10. The best way to teach art is to live art

Baldessari’s roster of former students reads like a who’s who of important artists from the past 40 years: Barbara Bloom, Liz Craft, Meg Cranston, Jack Goldstein, Karl Haendel, Skylar Haskard, Elliott Hundley, Mike Kelley, Tony Oursler, Liz Larner, Matt Mullican, Analia Saban, David Salle, and James Welling, to name a few. Stories of Baldessari’s post-studio classes, a term he first heard from Carl Andre and employed thereafter, are the stuff of legends in Los Angeles. The most often repeated description of John’s teaching style was that he treated them with respects, always thinking of them as artists, not students, and allowing them to find their own voice. Baldessari himself has said, “You can’t teach art but it might help to have really good artists around.”