I Will Not Make Anymore Boring Art

29 seconds of
I Am Making Art by John Baldessari
(1971)



From vdb.org:
"A good example of Baldessari's deadpan irreverence is the 1971 black-and-white videotape entitled I Am Making Art, in which he moves different parts of his body slightly while saying, after each move, 'I am making art.' The statement, he says, 'hovers between assertion and belief.' On one level, the piece spoofs the work of artists who, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, explored the use of their own bodies and gestures as an art medium. The endless repetition, awkwardness of the movements made by the artist, and the reiteration of the statement 'I am making art,' create a synthesis of gestural and linguistic modes which is both innovative (in the same way that the more serious work of his peers is innovative) and absurdly self-evident."
—Marcia Tucker, "John Baldessari: Pursuing the Unpredictable," John Baldessari (New York: New Museum, 1981)

28 seconds of
I Will Not Make Anymore Boring Art by John Baldessari
(1971)



From vdb.org:
'I will not make any more boring art,' John Baldessari wrote over and over again in a work done in 1971. The impulse for the piece, he says, came from dissatisfaction with the 'fallout of minimalism,' but its implications are far greater. It is typical of Baldessari's work, for not only is it extremely funny, but it is also a strategy, a set of conditions, a directive, a paradoxical statement, and a commentary on the art world with which it is involved. Like all his work to date, it addresses, on many complex levels, issues about art, language, games and the world at large."
—Marcia Tucker, "John Baldessari: Pursuing the Unpredictable," John Baldessari (New York: New Museum, 1981)


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