“One of the purposes of art,” John Baldessari offered with winking solemnity, “should be to keep us perceptually off balance.” To collage the wonderful, joyful, romping praise and prestige that was layered upon the artist during his lifetime is no easy task. Largely considered The Godfather of Conceptual Art, Baldessari’s lasting influence was not, however, predestined. He began his career as a mediocre semi-abstract painter in the 1950s, but – increasingly disenchanted with his efforts – later consigned his canvases to a funeral home’s flames. The Cremation Project (1970) marked the beginning of a prolific and influential career for “the tallest serious artist in the world,” in the words of friend and former student David Salle. A giant in art and life, Baldessari is celebrated for the humble labour of his works, with their simple joys and earnest humour. From singing Sol le Witt’s thirty-five statements on conceptual art to writing the line I will not make any more boring art as a schoolchild punished for bad behaviour might, teaching a plant the alphabet, and making couches shaped like ears, his was a practice of openness; an invitation to the stuff of life and humanness to be reimagined as art. In death, he is remembered for the eclecticism of his intrigues and not only, as he imagined, as “that guy who put dots over people’s faces.”