You Missed Having Drinks with John Baldessari

There’s something refreshing about artist interviews. For their brief  duration, the artist is not described through a museum wall text or an exhibition catalogue essay, but by themselves, in their own words.
 Without the filter of third party interpretation, what remains is
 simply raw human insight into an artist’s intentions, processes and
insecurities. With this frank and casual approach to visual inquiry in
mind, White Flag created its Drinks series, wherein archival video 
interviews with highly accomplished artists are screened once a month at happy hour 
(with free happy hour drinks).

This season’s series was inaugurated by a 1979 interview with  California-based artist John Baldessari. Best known as a
 major contributor to the conceptual art movement of the 1960’s and
 70’s, Baldessari stripped away the physicality of art objects and
 reduced art to theory and concept. As his works were founded on ideas
 rather than materials, text was often used either with or without an
 image to critique the definition of art to the point of absurdity. The
 shift in perception initiated by Baldessari and his contemporaries
 resonates strongly within the current art discourse.

The next interview in the Drinks Series will be on November 18th with
  Barbara Kruger. Drinks served 5 to 7pm, video screens at 6.

-Marie Heilich, Intern