BAXTER& is recognized internationally as an early practitioner of conceptual art; the Canada Council Molson Prize committee stated in 2005 that his "highly regarded conceptual installations and projects, as well as his photography, have earned him the label of 'the Marshall McLuhan of the visual arts.
BAXTER& studied art and aesthetics in Japan in 1961 and completed an MFA at Washington State University at Pullman in 1964.
Thing Co. was established as a conceptual vehicle that viewed the art world as "parallel [to] consumer culture.
Thing Co. created some of the earliest photoconceptual works to display a tendency to use photography to document "idea-works and their sites, as language games and thematic inventories and as reflective investigations of the social and architectural landscape.
[9] In 2005, Iain Baxter legally changed his name to IAIN BAXTER& (pronounced Baxter-and), in part to reflect his fascination for the ampersand as a typographic mark but also to reflect what he values in a "non-authorial take on art production... an unending collaboration with the viewer and the means to question the artist's role."