John Baldessari was an American artist.

A typical Baldessari work is Painting for Kubler (1967–68) which is a painting of a text paraphrasing five theses from art historian George Kubler’s book The Shape of Time (1962).

The text reads:

“This painting owes its existence to prior paintings. By liking this solution, you should not be blocked in your continued acceptance of prior inventions. To attain this position, ideas of former painting had to be rethought in order to transcend former work. To like this painting, you will have to understand prior work. Ultimately this work will amalgamate with the existing body of knowledge.”

In his own analysis, he said he would be best remembered as “the guy who puts dots over people’s faces.”