Last year we featured the brilliant six-minute film A Brief History of John Baldessari, which delved into the minutiae of the iconic artist's life, right down to his Wi-Fi password and coffee maker. Now, we consider Baldessari's verdurous Santa Monica garden, designed by celebrated landscape architect Pamela Burton, and featured in the new issue of AnOther Magazine, in line with its underlying theme of home.
The white-whiskered pioneer of conceptual art purchased his house in the 1980s, when Burton – now "really famous" in Baldessari's words – was relatively unknown. The wife of a teacher at CalArts, where Baldessari also taught, she offered to give the unkempt garden a much-needed makeover in return for one of his pieces. "She looked around and said, 'John, you know what you've got? You've got a poop yard where dogs take shits,'" Baldessari tells Maxwell Williams in the AnOther Magazine interview.
"I should have people throw parties here and invite me..."
The garden owes its many leafy trees to Burton, as well as its neat terracing, which smoothed out the previously hilly terrain; while a moss walkway and giant cactus are 1930s originals from the time the house was built. Almost thirty years after its revamp, Baldessari still enjoys his garden which remains a source of new ideas: "I should have people throw parties here and invite me," he muses.
Here, we present some previously unseen images of Baldessari in his garden, taken by Magdalena Wosinska for AnOther, alongside some interior shots of his home.
Text by Daisy Woodward
Interview in AnOther Magazine by Maxwell Williams
