| Artist: | John Baldessari |
|
|---|---|---|
| Title: | I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art | |
| Date: | 1971 | |
| Nationality: | American | |
| Context: | Conceptual | |
| Movement: | ||
| Materials: | performance, black and white photographs, pencil and paper | |
| Subject: Baldessari's declares after cremating his accumulated paintings that "I will not make any more boring art." The work came about as a response to the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design when they asked him to do an exhibition there; since they couldn't come up with enough money for him to travel there, he proposed that the students write, "I will not make any more boring art" on the walls of the gallery, like punishment. They covered the walls and Baldessari made a 30 minute videotape of the action of writing out the phrase repetitively for the duration of the videotape. Style: a performance piece or "action" involving the collaboration of others plus a videotape of the artist performing the same repetitive task for the duration of a 30 minute tape. He declares he won't make any more boring art in a rather blatantly boring way, which becomes fascinating due to its own obsessiveness and due to the idea that drives the work. Context: Baldessari comes out of conceptual art; taught a course called "poststudio art" at Cal Arts in the 70s that was very influential; postmodern questioning of art that opens up thinking about what art can be rather than pinning down a definition. | ||
