walkerartcenter:

Dave Eggers on birthday boy Raymond Pettibon’s No title (Why are we killing) (1988):

Raymond Pettibon can be credited with kicking open the door to the acceptance of text in contemporary art. Were there others who incorporated text before him? Hundreds. But whole sentences? Sentences with narrative coherence? Not many, if any at all. Text in painting before Pettibon was almost always of the aphoristic (Kruger/Holzer), expressionistic (Nauman), or just iconic (Indiana) kind. No one dared to actually tell stories, which is what Pettibon does, much to the consternation of some: he’s a storyteller. Having seen an entire show of Pettibon’s work, we feel like we’ve read his diary, seen all of his films, read six or seven short stories and a chapbook of street poetry.