He is a professor of art history at the University of California, Los Angeles[1] and an editor of the journal October.
[2] Reviewing a book that Baker wrote on Dada, Merlin James wrote "What Baker really offers, perfectly reasonably, is high-end, post-modern theorising, with just a touch of unconventionality in honour of his subject’s way-outness.
[6] He is also a critic of contemporary art, a contributor to Artforum magazine, he has written essays on the work of artist Paul Chan amongst others.
[7] In 2008 he participated in the conference Canvases and Careers Today at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, that was subsequently published as a book, delivering a paper called "Late Criticism".
[8] In 2009, with his colleague Steven Nelson, Baker led an attempt to save the fine arts library on the UCLA campus, launching a Facebook page and an online petition.