John Baldessari: Recycling Images

[On poster: "Learn to read"]

My early assistants would throw out some paper and I would take it out of the trash and say,

"Why are you throwing this away? You can use it."

When I was going to school, you had to write on both sides of the paper to save paper.

So yeah, I'm a pack rat. Like, "Ah, I could use that somehow."

I saw a lot of that in India, how people there will recycle anything

And make something new out of it. You see it a lot in folk art.

I probably got my... My first lesson probably came from Schwitters.

You know, he was picking up stuff out of the street. And I would pick up photographs from the street.

Well, I think if somebody wanted to borrow some imagery I was using, I would be flattered.

Ha! Here's one I had worked on.

I really just don't think imageries should be owned, including my own.

If it's part of our world, it's like owning words. How could you own words? I mean, it's stuff to use.

She was retouched. Look... [chuckles]