Baldessari, Ingres and Other Parables

John Baldessari, Ingres and Other Parables (detail), 1971
The Best Way To Do Art

A young artist in school used to worship the paintings of Cezanne. He looked at and studied all the books he could find on Cezanne and copied all of the reproductions of Cezanne’s work he found in the books.

He visited a museum and for the first time saw a real Cezanne painting. He hated it. It was nothing like the Cezannes he had studied in the books. From that time on, he made all of his paintings the sizes of paintings reproduced in books and he painted them in black and white. He also printed captions and explanations on the paintings as in books. Often he just used words.

And one day he realized that very few people went to art galleries and museums but many people looked at books and magazines as he did and they got them through the mail as he did.

Moral: It’s difficult to put a painting in a mailbox.

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Comment by Ruud Janssen on October 5, 2015 at 6:42pm: Johan van Geluwe used the stamp "The mailbox is a museum' as he created the museums of museums.

Comment by Richard Canard on October 5, 2015 at 6:31pm: 05.10.15 Dare Mister Research, ... This is in reference to that classic mail art statement "The mailbox is a museum"---- right??? ( I've forgotten already who said that but even I noticed the the lighting inside of a mailbox was never very good even when the garage door was fully open...not to mention it remains closed half the time & the curator always seems to be "out to lunch". Thanx for posting at the IUOMA...Ave uh nez dae & awe dat ghazz. Richard Canard

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