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John Baldessari
Voluble Luminist Painting for Max Kozloff, 1968
Acrylic on canvas
59 x 59 inches
Gift of the Betty and Monte Factor Family Collection
1975.017

From 1966 to 1968 John Baldessari created a series of text-based paintings, hand-lettered by professional sign painters. The use of canvas was his only bow to conventional notions of painting. The canvases contain written extracts from art manuals, his own notebooks, and the essays of contemporary critics, including art writer Max Kozloff. In Voluble Luminist Painting for Max Kozloff, portions of a 1968 Artforum article written by Kozloff have been taken out of context and isolated by the artist. With wit and irony, Baldessari reversed the typical artist-critic relationship, using the tools of the art critic to make the painting.