Ethics and an artist statments.

Poco · May 9, 2007

I think artists statements, as a requirement, are total and complete bullshit -- an artificial imposition by critics and academics that artists must play on their (critics and academics) home turf of linguistics.

I say go ahead and have someone else write the statement. If enough people go that route, maybe statements (again, as a requirement) will be exposed as the joke they are and just go away.

jstraw · May 9, 2007

If you go to see an ehxibition in a gallery and the artist's statement is displayed, do you read it?

gr82bart · May 9, 2007

jstraw said:
If you go to see an ehxibition in a gallery and the artist's statement is displayed, do you read it?

I was just going to comment on that. Are they the hobbled together sheets of paper in a white three ring binder off to the side of the receptionist's desk that no one ever reads?

Regards, Art. (This thread's like the Microsoft Contest thread where people are worked up over nothing.)

gr82bart · May 9, 2007

gr82bart said:
This thread's like the Microsoft Contest thread where people are worked up over nothing.

D'oh! Nevermind.

Regards, Art.

Poco · May 9, 2007

If you go to the theater or a concert, do the musicians or actors even have an artists' statement to read? No. How about an author -- is it required that every novel be prefaced by one? No...

So why the hell is one expected from a visual artist?

jstraw · May 9, 2007

gr82bart said:
I was just going to comment on that. Are they the hobbled together sheets of paper in a white three ring binder off to the side of the receptionist's desk that no one ever reads?

Regards, Art. (This thread's like the Microsoft Contest thread where people are worked up over nothing.)

Sometimes and sometimes it's on the wall. If it's on the wall, I read it. If you go see a collection, there will not be one statement per represented artist but there may be a statement from the curator. I read 'em on the wall and sometimes but seldom, I seek out the binder.

jstraw · May 9, 2007

Poco said:
If you go to the theater or a concert, do the musicians or actors even have an artists' statement to read? No. How about an author -- is it required that every novel be prefaced by one? No...

So why the hell is one expected from a visual artist?

Theatrical productions usually have programs. Often the principal actors will have the opportunity to place their bio which may or may not include a "statement" within. Quite often there will be a statement written by the director or the theatre's artistic director.

If it's a formal concert, again, a program.

If it's a casual rock, jazz, etc. concert, the performer has the opportunity to say as much or little about the work as they wish from the stage. I hear plenty of "statements" this way.

I've railed against art-speak blather plenty but I see nothing wrong with artists statements per se. I don't know that they are or should be required but that begs the question, required by whom. A gallery or museum is free to require whatever it wishes.

Are they useful? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes they answer questions I have, sometimes they further muddy the waters.

I read them after I've viewed the work, not before.

laverdure · May 9, 2007

Artist statements make me cringe, almost without exception. The key to writing them, I think, is to say nothing about art, self or ideas. Ideally they shouldn't be longer than 150 words. More often than not when I read an artist statement I lose respect for the artist. Don't be that guy!

Poco · May 9, 2007

Of course concerts and performances of any type include bios in programs, but I can't ever remember reading anything approaching a self-authored artist statement. And when a performer auditions, I highly doubt they'd get many return calls if they insisted on reading some statement ahead of time. So if it's a truly ridiculous idea for composers, authors and performers, why is it not only acceptable but required for visual artists?

AgX · May 9, 2007

From what I read in the last posts I get the impression that this artist's statement thing is even worse than I thought.
And I must admit I came about this term for the first time e few weeks ago when strolling on the threads of the net (not very comfortably) through some US art galleries...

gr82bart · May 9, 2007

Poco said:
Of course concerts and performances of any type include bios in programs, but I can't ever remember reading anything approaching a self-authored artist statement.

Just an aside - I sat on the board of a major theatre company in Toronto. The performers did self-author their bios. They just did it the third person, which is very weird to do, when you try it.

Back to the orginal theme of the thread ...

So are these artist statments suppose to give/tell the viewer a little more context about the work/artist? To better (or not) enjoy/understand the work itself. For sure, it can't be equivalent to a CV or resume, right? Or is it suppose to be.

OK, truth be told I have a read some of those unread binders and the statements vary tremendously - from a 150 word paragraph to pages and pages. Some list a 'philosophy', others are a detailed chronological account of the work/product history. What an artist statement suppose to be? What's it's purpose? I can't figure it out.

Regards, Art.

Katharine Thayer · May 9, 2007

This thread brought to mind an artist statement I saw some years ago that I thought was such a remarkable example of pretentious academic gobbledegook, that I stood and copied it off the gallery wall, word for word, to keep for entertainment purposes.

I found it and will reproduce it in its entirety below, although unfortunately I can't attribute it to its original author, since the art itself and the artist were both much less memorable than the statement. But in the intervening years I've become more familiar with the terminology and syntax of this kind of discourse (what some on this site call artspeak) and I'm convinced on re-reading it now that it must have been intended as a sendup, and may even have been produced by an early version of the postmodernist prose generators you can find on the web nowadays.

"Although my work is located, historically, within the perimeter of abstract expressionism, it is markedly divergent in the formative synthesis of intentional factors of direct experience. Its nucleus is the inherent tension established by the dichotomy in the abrasive flux of what we call culture and nature: the tension created from proximity suggests a remove toward abandonment of the exploratory scheme, interpretive discourse, intrusive phrases and other inevitable pretensions of alienating pragmatic imperatives. A consciousness of the interconnectedness of phenomena in the context of a dynamic of the ratio and scale in human encounters is, instead, created. This is manifested through simultaneity of incidents and perpetual interaction concluding, primally, as pulsations against a shape of visual space."

jstraw · May 9, 2007

THAT is a work of art. I may use it.

catem · May 10, 2007

jstraw said:
THAT is a work of art. I may use it.

Me too. LOL.

TheFlyingCamera · May 10, 2007

Katharine Thayer said:
"Although my work is located, historically, within the perimeter of abstract expressionism, it is markedly divergent in the formative synthesis of intentional factors of direct experience. Its nucleus is the inherent tension established by the dichotomy in the abrasive flux of what we call culture and nature: the tension created from proximity suggests a remove toward abandonment of the exploratory scheme, interpretive discourse, intrusive phrases and other inevitable pretensions of alienating pragmatic imperatives. A consciousness of the interconnectedness of phenomena in the context of a dynamic of the ratio and scale in human encounters is, instead, created. This is manifested through simultaneity of incidents and perpetual interaction concluding, primally, as pulsations against a shape of visual space."

That sounds like it was written using the Dilbert Mission Statement generator tool!

Curt · May 10, 2007

That was written by two guys in a pub, loaded. "It's entirely unconvincing in it's abstraction of minor pieces of fluid motion in a dynamic space of intervening sudden action. It did succeed in the plan to revisit the stage of absent quarters to a step down of announcements in a noble long serving cause. A forth day merger unites the possibility of interactions of late briefings in an environment of total exploration." "I pulsate at the thought of a minimum production of ill fated progress in light of past experiences though." "I must remember, I must remember" "The key is in the drawer, the key is in the drawer, the key is on the floor."

jstraw · May 10, 2007

Save the Tymphanuchus cupido.

Ric Johnson · May 10, 2007

25 first paragraphs and nothing else (?) First it sounds like a manuscript more then a statement, but since it's not mine, use all that you wrote. If you would like to have somebody else write for you, do it... just make sure that you and the writer have an interview and that the writer reads your 25 papagraphs to set them all together. And that you also read and agree or change what was written before anyone else. In a show I only read artists statements if I really do like the prints and wondering why he/she shot and printed them and also the intent of the show. When I read one I don't worry about who wrote it I use believe that it's the photogrqphers point-of-view.

Sparky · May 10, 2007

Katharine Thayer said:
"Although my work is located, historically, within the perimeter of abstract expressionism, it is markedly divergent in the formative synthesis of intentional factors of direct experience. Its nucleus is the inherent tension established by the dichotomy in the abrasive flux of what we call culture and nature: the tension created from proximity suggests a remove toward abandonment of the exploratory scheme, interpretive discourse, intrusive phrases and other inevitable pretensions of alienating pragmatic imperatives. A consciousness of the interconnectedness of phenomena in the context of a dynamic of the ratio and scale in human encounters is, instead, created. This is manifested through simultaneity of incidents and perpetual interaction concluding, primally, as pulsations against a shape of visual space."

Hey!!! That's MINE!!! Who gave you permission to reproduce it??

Jim Jones · May 10, 2007

As a photographer I capture my own images; do my own printing, matting, and framing; repair my own equipment, often improvise accessories. and write my own "artist's statement" if one is required. If I were no mechanic, I'd delegate the repairs. If I sold large numbers of prints, having a lab do the printing would be logical. If matting and framing requirements were complex, I'd farm that out. I'm too inept at writing to worry about any need for outside assistance with it. There's nothing wrong with having someone else provide support in the non-creative aspects of photography.

Kino · May 10, 2007

Seems as if this practice of making a "artist's statement" attempts to place the persona of the artist in the same realm of the work -- as a bit of art.

Why compete with yourself?

Of course, you could have fun with your statement; be outrageous, be contradictory, tell lies, fling philosophical poo, channel Salvador Dali and Luis Bunuel...

Then deny it all and let the work speak for itself.

Should make for some interesting and jolting conversation starts in the gallery and maybe even a fist-fight or two.

(like I'll ever be in that position...) :rolleyes:

Curt · May 11, 2007

Maybe the members here can write a statement for you???? Let's go:

I see therefore I photograph...

My father gave me my first camera, a box brownie, when I was 12 years old. I developed quickly, my first show was in a private viewing at the Museum of Modern Art. I am held in thousands of collections, both public and private...

I stumbled into photography quite accidentally while working on a painting for the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C....

At age two I discovered that I could previsualize images in my head and with the help of my parents I was taken into the field and found exactly what I "saw" in my mind. It's hard to put into words but I see exactly what I want then get it, but there I go trying to explain what I do...

Keep working on it, Curt

laverdure · May 11, 2007

...I am a bleeding genius. Terribly misunderstood. Excellent investment. Is your daughter good looking?...

TheFlyingCamera · May 11, 2007

The Dilbert Mission Statement Generator:

http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/games/career/bin/ms.cgi

"It is our job to efficiently foster value-added products and authoritatively disseminate enterprise-wide infrastructures to meet our customer's needs"

"Our goal is to competently foster performance based opportunities so that we may efficiently fashion diverse intellectual capital in order to solve business problems"

and

"The customer can count on us to synergistically negotiate cutting edge paradigms so that we may endeavor to quickly build progressive deliverables"

Change a few of the words in the Mission Statement Generator's dictionary, and voila- you have Artspeak!

Ed Sukach · May 11, 2007

Katharine Thayer said:
...
"Although my work is located, historically, within the perimeter of abstract expressionism, .... concluding, primally, as pulsations against a shape of visual space."

First .... I didn't know there was a "perimeter" in abstract expressionism ....

Second ... that "Pulsation" thing seems to be FAR too sensuous...

But, seriously ... (or serious-less), I've processed this through my "ArtSpeak - to - English" program. Here is the result:

"Me see naked woman. Me press button on camera."

All in all ... not bad.

Ethics and an artist statments.

Poco

jstraw

gr82bart

gr82bart

Poco

jstraw

jstraw

laverdure

Poco

AgX

gr82bart

Katharine Thayer

jstraw

catem

TheFlyingCamera

Membership Council

Curt

jstraw

Ric Johnson

Sparky

Jim Jones

Kino

Curt

laverdure

TheFlyingCamera

Membership Council

Ed Sukach

Ethics and an artist statments.

Membership Council

Membership Council

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency