1. He enlisted Tom Waits for a video about … John Baldessari

What can we tell you about John Baldessari that he hasn’t already said himself? In 2012, he made a video about his life and work, asking gravelly-voiced Tom Waits to narrate. But don’t expect a tightly structured biography. A Brief History of John Baldessari captures the artist to a T – and in the style of the film itself: full of humour and absurdity.

2. I will not make any more boring art 

In 1971, Baldessari was invited to exhibit at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Canada. But there was no budget to fly him over. His solution? He asked the students to create the artwork themselves. Their assignment: to write the phrase I will not make any more boring art endlessly on the gallery walls.

What began as a joke became a critique of art education, which Baldessari felt focused too much on repetition and not enough on creativity. He later added a video version in which he writes the sentence again and again as a kind of punishment. The work is now an iconic piece of conceptual art: rebellious, playful, and sharp.

3. He burned all his work

Like many other experimental artists, Baldessari began his career in the more traditional world of painting. In 1970, he burned all his paintings from the period 1953–1966 in a San Diego crematorium. He called this work The Cremation Project. Baldessari baked the ashes into cookies and placed them in an urn. In this way, he made a radical break with the past and questioned the value of the art object. It was also a statement against the established art world and a means of reinventing himself as an artist.

4. He was interviewed by Marge Simpson 

Not every artist makes it to Springfield, but John Baldessari did. He appeared in an episode of The Simpsons entitled 3 Scenes Plus a Tag from a Marriage, in which he plays himself in a flashback. Marge, then a journalist, tries to interview him. With this fleeting role, he joined the ranks of luminaries such as Art Spiegelman, Frank Gehry, and Thomas Pynchon, all of whom have appeared in the iconic animated series. A fitting homage to an artist known for his sense of humour.

5. Giotto and Goya were his housemates 

John Baldessari drew much of his inspiration from art history. He even named his dogs Goya and Giotto. In an interview, he fantasised about a life as Dr Baldessari, art historian. “Art comes from art,” he said. That love is reflected in his Goya Series – raw, lesser-known works in which, like Francisco Goya, he juxtaposes image and text. Inspired by Goya’s The Disasters of War, in which gruesome war scenes are accompanied by chilling titles such as Y no hay remedio (“There is no remedy”), Baldessari explores the power – and above all the limitations – of language.

Tip: Combine Baldessari with Luz y sombra. Goya and Spanish Realism organised as part of Europalia – the two exhibitions run more or less concurrently.