“AS: Your work is often categorized within ‘Conceptual Art’ – is that a title that you accept?
JB: That’s somebody else’s title. When I emerged, there was a group of artists who were all thinking in a similar way – all trying to get away from painting – and somebody decided to call it ‘Conceptual Art’. But categories are really just useful for writers; if you asked any of those artists today if they were conceptual artists, they would deny it – except maybe Joseph Kosuth.
AS: But is the ‘concept’ of a work, or the ideas that lie behind your work, something that you consider to be of central importance to your art?
JB: I guess so, in the sense that it would be very easy for me to just come up with ideas and never do anything physical – really, anybody could make the work itself. But I think that’s true with any art; an artist always has some kind of idea as their starting point, so all art is conceptual.”
Da entrevista com John Baldessari na SEESAW magazine. Um favorito!
