John Baldessari: the giant prankster who torched artworld pretention

He told his students to write ‘I will not make boring art’ on the walls – and by burning his own work he changed the course of art historyJohn Baldessari, US conceptual artist with a sense of humour, dies aged 88John Baldessari was a towering figure in conceptual art. I mean, literally he was a towering figure: 6ft 7in to be precise. He was also incredibly important. His own work spread across painting, photography, film, video, artists’ books, billboards and public sculp