The (dreaded) Artist Statement ... Help wanted.

[Daniel Grenier]

By contract, I have to submit an "Artist Statement" to a gallery for a show I have coming up.

I have been good at avoiding this in the past (let the work speak for itself, I say) but I am now cornered. After some attempts, I keep stalling and cannot come up with much of anything worth sharing. It's getting embarassing, and the gallery needs this by next week!

To kick start this process, would you share yours or point me to ones you've been impressed by? Don't worry. I am not planing to copy anyone's statement. I just need a "boost" to get going.

Suggestions?

[Geert]

Maybe that's the reason why you're a photographer and not a poet.

G

[Don Sparks]

We have a local gallery that lists the photographers and statements. Just go to artists and click on the highlighted names. You might get some ideas.

http://www.smokymtnphotographers.com/

[Joe Lipka]

I would assume that your show has a theme. If your show has a theme, write about the theme of the show. A statement should prepare your viewers to look at your photographs. You might wish to talk about what the photographs mean rather than what they are about.
I have a statement about each portfolio I do. Some are better than others. You could check out the portfolios (projects) on my web site for my approach to a statement.

www.joelipkaphoto.com

Next time (just for grins), do your statement and then begin photographing...

[Patricia Langer]

Daniel, check out Freeman Patterson's statement on his website, www.freemanpatterson.com. It might get the juices flowing. Good luck

[Michael Gudzinowicz]

If you really get desperate, try the Postmodern Generator (http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo). Every time you visit the page, a meaningless random statement is generated. Cut and paste until you develop something pretentious enough to intimidate anyone remotely interested in photography, and ascribe authorship to someone else. Tell us about the gallery's reaction... they'll love it.

[medform-norm]

In addition to all above mentioned pieces of good advice, I venture to add some more.

We are two artists collaborating on a range of projects. When we have to write motivations for individual funding requests, we do like this:

Make something nice to drink and sit down where you feel comfortable -table, couch, restaurant. One questions the other about the work - the interrogator must be critical, makes notes, and keeps on asking until things become clear for both. Don't make any fake or pretentious stories that you can't stand behind. I personally would not like to reread my own pretentious bullshit in a newspaper review - as lazy journalists are prone to just copying what you give them. There is always something genuine to be said about your work and most of the time you'll be able to speak freely about it when not having writer's block. Don't make life/things/work more complicated than necessary.

Have the interrogator write the statement about the others work, let this other check the statement to see if it is not too far besides the truth. Hand in the result.

Always has worked for us, gotten several grants this way without a problem, somehow it we've always made it sound convincing enough. And no, I'm not putting any of those texts on line, they're all in a foreign language anyway and have nothing to do with photography.

Actually, in retrospect such conversations and tasks are always far more rewarding than you think, forcing you to reposition yourself, rethink what you're doing (and what you're NOT doing) and why the hell you're doing it. Good luck with your show.

[tim atherton]

medform-norm - that's one of the best pieces of advice I've read on here...

[medform-norm]

Why, Timothy, you flatter me! You should see me blush.

This method has developed out of the frustration so many people have when having to write about themselves, while it is so much easier to be positive/constructive/perceptive/confident about someone else.

What I did not say that these discussions between ourselves can sometimes flare up quite sharply - so we do not do this too often in a public place, people would start wondering if we're having a fight :)

[Dave Rodenbaugh]

You might try checking artbizcoach.com (http://artbizcoach.com). Alyson is a former museum curator and consults professionally about creating artist statements and the like. She has an example on her site that talks about the refining process from start to finish. It helped me tremendously when making my own statement.

HTH,
-D

[Michael Gordon]

Cay Lang's 'Taking the Leap; Bulding a Career as a Visual Artist' has useful and good information on writing the statement in addition to a couple of samples. Here's a few tidbits:

* describing the work is not the point of the statement; the point is to make the viewer want to know more about the work;

* Keep it short!

* Be as specific as possible; don't tell people that you like to photograph (we all do, even non-photographers). Explain WHY you make the photographs.

I struggle eternally with writing and revising my statement, but I find it easier to write if I'm honest, truthful, and passionate about my work and what I'm saying. Depending upon the exact purpose and needs of the statment, I also try to answer the who-what-where-why. I don't describe the HOW; unless you have a revolutionary or unique technique, no one but photographers care about what kind of camera or lens you used or how you developed or toned the prints. It's useless information in the context of the body of work.

Good luck!

[paulr]

Michael's points are great, so are medform norm's.

I'd add that writing an artist's statement, and rewriting it once in a while, is an important exercise, even if you never show it to anyone. it forces you to ask yourself some tough questions, and find a kind of clarity that often end up just working without. To get value out of it yourself it's much more important for it to be honest than to be good in any other way.

I've noticed a couple of different styles of artist's statement. One of them is likely more relevent to you and your work than the other. The first is the personal kind ("I've been fascinated with old barnwood ever since my father died ... "). The second is the more academic, documentary kind ("The Pequot tribe first came to the Northeast marsh region over 700 years ago, and brought with them their knowledge of irrigation, strip mining, and cable television ...").

It's possible to take a middle road, too.

In any case, please don't tell people what your work means! Statements that try to do that are usually shallow, vaguely insulting, and take away more than they add. This is where it's important to remember you're a photographer and not a poet.

It's also a good idea to avoid cliche phrases like "I'm interested in ..." simply because every college art major in the world starts their pretentious statement with that phrase.

It's always safe to talk about your subject matter. Guys like Robert Adams and Andrew Boroweic have written long essays about the regions they've photographed, even when the concerns of the images are obviously more personal. I'm not always a fan of the safe choice, but if you're worried about your audience getting it ... or caring ... it might be an approach to consider.

Good topics include what draws you to your subject matter, what draws you to your methodology, what you hope to discover.

Write it so that if your mom reads it, she won't put it down and tell you you're full of crap.

[chris jordan]

Here are my own rules for writing my artist statements:

--Don't judge the photos, or try to feed the viewer (e.g., "these are intimately magical moments of touching depth and beauty, etc., etc...."). Leave ALL of the judging and opinionating up to others.

--Don't say stuff that the photos are supposed to say (e.g., "these photographs convey the grandeur of the landscape in all of its splendor," etc.)

--Don't talk about your emotions in sappy terms like poignant, intimate, touching, lyrical, etc.; leave that to others.

--Talk about your motivations to do the work, but only the ones that aren't obviously in the pictures themselves (e.g., "I care about this place because this is where my grandfather settled ninety years ago.")

--Use simple language, clear terms, no jargon (paradigm is the worst one), and never say you are redefining anything.

--Don't try to put your work in the context of the art world; that's a job for a curator or critic. (E.g., "this work goes one step beyond Picasso and redefines the paradigm for how paradigms should be redefined.")

--Talk about the subject, in a way that conveys why you care about it (e.g., "This is a vanishing wilderness soon to be bulldozed," etc.)

--And most important of all: When it feels done, send it to about ten close friends whose opinions you trust, and ask them to be brutally honest in their comments. I've gotten back stuff like "hey Chris, can I have some of what you smoked before writing that?" which sends me back to the drawing board. After about five rounds of that, if I'm lucky I have something reasonably coherent...

~cj

www.chrisjordan.com (by the way there are a couple of artist statements on there if you're interested)

[medform-norm]

Another bit of sound and level headed advice from someone who obviously knows what he's doing (and I mean his work as well). This should get you going on your own statement, unless of course following all the leads in this thread to external sources may turn into another form of procrastinating...

[paulr]

"this work goes one step beyond Picasso and redefines the paradigm for how paradigms should be redefined."

Chris, don't be modest. your paradigm goes at least two steps beyond picasso.

[Daniel Grenier]

"Another bit of sound and level headed advice from someone who obviously knows what he's doing (and I mean his work as well). This should get you going on your own statement...."

Indeed, lots of sound advice here (I especially like the don`t rather than the do approach, Chris). I`ll spend the next few days in the quiet of my darkroom to hopefully finalize what has turned out to be far more difficult an endeavour than first anticipated.

Thanks again folks, as always.

[Michael Gudzinowicz]

paulr wrote:

"this work goes one step beyond Picasso and redefines the paradigm for how paradigms should be redefined."

Hey... that's what they said in the "Art in America" review of Mike and Doug Starn's debute work just after
they finished up at the MFA School in Boston around a dozen years ago.

(If anyone isn't familiar with the phenomena: http://www.starnstudio.com/
If password is requested, just hit cancel. Google "Mike Doug Starn" for more
stuff. There are some well done "statements" about their work floating
around on sites and in the recent articles on their site.)

[paulr]

this is an actual artist's statement a friend found around 10 years ago. just reading it shifted my paradigm; i've been limping ever since.

"_____'s graphic mastery of the world of appearances calls into question the reality he appears to depict. in _____'s images, the more fully articulated an object or ensemble becomes, the further it recedes into an essential mystery. This approach subtly transcends virtuosity, as the artist's gaze continues to probe with even greater amplitude long after the veneer of the "known" has been described. This intense sensibility, deftly merging the familiar and the unknown, informs his series of seductive but menacing sculptures as well"

[Mark Sampson]

The good part about the statement quoted in paulr's last post is that, having read it, you are thereby relieved of the requirement to actually look at the work. You can then finish your glass of box wine, and head out to a barbecue joint (or asian restaurant) with your significant other and your friends.

[Dave Rodenbaugh]

Of course, there's always the handy "artist-statement-o-matic":
<p/>
http://tinyurl.com/mvpe
<p/>
-D

[paulr]

A lot of times i've seen horrible statements like these, and assumed the artist would be some pretentious post-modern ass, and been shocked to discover someone who's friendly, down to earth, and even a good artist. i suspect part of the problem is specifically that their strength is images and not in words--they know they have to write a statement, feel the same dread as the rest of us, and don't know what to do. So they just try to copy the style of other statements they've seen. They assume it's the jargon they're expected to use, because so many other people are doing it.

It's a problem just like corporate jargon. All the middle managers talk about shifting paradigms too. It's not always because they're jackasses; often they just don't know any better. They see the way the emails in their inboxes are written, and figure that's the language to use. So what if they don't understand it.

[tim atherton]

"It's a problem just like corporate jargon. All the middle managers talk about shifting paradigms too. It's not always because they're jackasses; often they just don't know any better. They see the way the emails in their inboxes are written, and figure that's the language to use. So what if they don't understand it."

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1592401406/sr=1-1/qid=1138298369/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-8578615-9198465?%5Fencoding=UTF8

http://tinyurl.com/8b6ek

an excellent read

and

http://www.weaselwords.com.au/index3.htm

[Bruno Di Nunzio]

Daniel, this is my statment for my last work. I have spent lot of time trying to put some words down than I wrote it one night when I finally have decided to focus on myself, my reasons and above all my feelings.

"This collection of photographs forms the basis of personal research and interpretation of the works of one of the most renown living sculptors: Arnaldo Pomodoro. The work required about three years of study. During that time I reflected, intuited, re-thought and re-did. Not once did I fail to find something stimulating and revealing. My work has allowed me to discover some new aspects - at times surprising - of the master's work.

Dorotea Lange once said: “… the camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera”. I have never before had such astounding confirmation of that idea: the more I photographed, the more I realized how many things had escaped my notice.

Among these photographs, one particularly struck me. I was attentively observing the proofs of one sculpture when I noticed a strong, almost graphic two-dimensional connotation of Arnaldo Pomodoro's work. Another interesting observation was that the strength communicated by the sculptures didn't change in the transition from three-dimensional to bi-dimensional sight. In fact, it surpassed the three-dimensional, isolating particular aspects and succeeded in exalting the intensity of the structures.

I was astounded by these unexpected results as well as by the fact that my work was actually helping these sculptures to come to life in a unique way: sculpture became picture and picture sculpture. The day I saw the metamorphosis of Arnaldo Pomodoro's sculptures (and my own photographs as well), the images in my work broke free of the confines of documentary and became art and truth in their own right.

While the essence and the soul of these works might be concealed within the three-dimensional structure, they are revealed and exalted in the photographs. I found this idea of metamorphosis very interesting and stimulating. I love the idea of using photography as a key for reading a work of art.

This is how the project came to be."

[paulr]

grassroots solution to the corporate jargon cancer:

http://elsmar.com/level2/Bingo.html

i like the testimonials at the bottom.