This first volume of JRP|Ringier’s complete John Baldessari writings project traces the genesis and development of the artist’s understanding of art in the early 1960s. More Than You Wanted to Know About John Baldessari presents Baldessari as storyteller, moralist, teacher and occasional gadfly, always concerned to accomplish what he describes as the central task of art making: to communicate in a way that people can understand. These writings address everything from matters of color in sculpture, to the dilemmas of art students in need of ideas, to the art world’s ever-conflicted relationship with money, while always returning to Baldessari’s love of language and his longstanding investigation into the tensions of word and image. With numerous never-before-published texts and facsimiles of original documents, this long-anticipated collection will prove essential reading for anyone involved in contemporary art.

This first volume of JRP|Ringier’s complete John Baldessari writings project traces the genesis and development of the artist’s understanding of art in the early 1960s. More Than You Wanted to Know About John Baldessari presents Baldessari as storyteller, moralist, teacher and occasional gadfly, always concerned to accomplish what he describes as the central task of art making: to communicate in a way that people can understand. These writings address everything from matters of color in sculpture, to the dilemmas of art students in need of ideas, to the art world’s ever-conflicted relationship with money, while always returning to Baldessari’s love of language and his longstanding investigation into the tensions of word and image. With numerous never-before-published texts and facsimiles of original documents, this long-anticipated collection will prove essential reading for anyone involved in contemporary art.