Artists’ Statements Demystified (Video)

By on June 25, 2011 in News 13

Charlotte Young educates the public on how to interpret an artist’s statement (via JWZ):

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  • Anonymous

    The moral of the story is? Some people and artists are pendantic idiots who like to use there vocabularies to maximum effect to make them appear smart and clever when their lives and creative exploits are actually just as mundane as the next person’s?
    Hmmmm, could be. 

    Could be me!

  • Anonymous

    i’d like to point out NOT every artist is like this….. just about 90%

  • Haystack

    Yeah, I think just about everyone is “faking it” in at least one area of their life. I didn’t post this to pick on artists specifically. You could do the same thing with corporate mission statements or job applicants’ cover letters–any kind of writing that’s designed to impress rather than to communicate. 

    I enjoyed it not because I dislike artists (I don’t), but because I dislike artists statements, and the fact that in various situations artists are expected/required to have them. I’ve had to write one for an intro-level photography course before, and, needless to say, I couldn’t just write “I’m a guy taking a course at a community college.”

  • Anonymous

    I hear you…and I’d like to add that many of us, myself included, try to improve their vocabularies simply because they want to understand what is being said or written in this world. We want to join the discussion and be precise in our communication as much as possible so that we may be understood.

    I have never been very good at faking it and lately I find it next to impossible. I find that integrity is the only asset any of us really have. Everything else is a lie and living a lie is no life at all. 

    “How can we mean what we say if we can’t say what we mean?”

  • Anonymous

    … ahahahahhahhaha

    This is what my senior seminar prof (Studio Art is one of my degrees) was looking for at my senior exhibition, one of these lofty-sounding attempts at branding myself as a Fine Artist. When I didn’t present that and instead said I considered myself more of a crafts-person, I just about failed the class. If he could have failed me and gotten away with it, he would have — or maybe he just wanted me out of his class and passed me to get rid of me :D I do not in any way regret going for graphic design instead of fine art as a career, because I’d be expected to reel this crap off at every show.

    Here’s the thing — in order to be taken seriously within the industry, an artist MUST either write a statement similar to what she was making fun of above, or find a way to take the piss about it in a way that doesn’t spotlight the customer’s role in forcing artists to act that way. If you are an artist and you want to pay the bills, you make your customers (which can be galleries, museums or wealthy patrons) believe that you and your work are somehow bigger than life, and that by buying your work, that bigger-than-lifeness is conferred in some small way on them. That’s why people spend millions on a Picasso or a Rembrandt. You can find equally talented artists living on the street right now in any major city (that doesn’t diminish the genius of Picasso or Rembrandt, they’re just not as rare as you think). But the art world has branded certain artists as being more prestigious, and THAT is what most people are buying.

  • Haystack

    You’re right. It seems like the more creative/subjective your field is, the more you have to brand yourself and generally be insincere in order to succeed financially. Unlike more practical professions, there are no objective measures of how good you are, so a lot of is has to depend on manipulating people’s perceptions of your work.

  • Guest

    Can’t really judge her since we are all trained to do this in one way, shape, or form… for example: resumes.  Seriously, you take all these electives in high school under the guise that it will “look good on your resume” and will get you better college selection… then, no, it never means crap.  You go to college and retake all the classes you took in high school plus some and maybe join a fraternity or sorority and participate in an extracurricular activity that somehow relates to the area you want to work in (whether you really give a shit about it or are just doing it because you hope to make money someday).. then, when it’s time to get a job, you rake up all this garbage and word it in a super-duper fancy way that essentially sells yourself for an hourly wage or salary… pricing your “average” human life at a $8.00/hr, if you’re lucky… so good for her, at least she has a vocabulary.  Unfortunately, artists tend to be a different breed of self-righteous and pretentious… which is a shame because we need art now more than ever.  

  • Guest

    Can’t really judge her since we are all trained to do this in one way, shape, or form… for example: resumes.  Seriously, you take all these electives in high school under the guise that it will “look good on your resume” and will get you better college selection… then, no, it never means crap.  You go to college and retake all the classes you took in high school plus some and maybe join a fraternity or sorority and participate in an extracurricular activity that somehow relates to the area you want to work in (whether you really give a shit about it or are just doing it because you hope to make money someday).. then, when it’s time to get a job, you rake up all this garbage and word it in a super-duper fancy way that essentially sells yourself for an hourly wage or salary… pricing your “average” human life at a $8.00/hr, if you’re lucky… so good for her, at least she has a vocabulary.  Unfortunately, artists tend to be a different breed of self-righteous and pretentious… which is a shame because we need art now more than ever.  

  • Guest

    Can’t really judge her since we are all trained to do this in one way, shape, or form… for example: resumes.  Seriously, you take all these electives in high school under the guise that it will “look good on your resume” and will get you better college selection… then, no, it never means crap.  You go to college and retake all the classes you took in high school plus some and maybe join a fraternity or sorority and participate in an extracurricular activity that somehow relates to the area you want to work in (whether you really give a shit about it or are just doing it because you hope to make money someday).. then, when it’s time to get a job, you rake up all this garbage and word it in a super-duper fancy way that essentially sells yourself for an hourly wage or salary… pricing your “average” human life at a $8.00/hr, if you’re lucky… so good for her, at least she has a vocabulary.  Unfortunately, artists tend to be a different breed of self-righteous and pretentious… which is a shame because we need art now more than ever.  

  • akbar

    this is an awesome post-modern exploration of semantic boundaries of identity and how these are used to navigate the contemporary socio-political landscape…

    no seriously, this is awesome!  i am a professional artist, and i f$%king hate my own field because it is so crammed full of this idiotic doublespeak…the whole art world has been co-opted by a bunch of failed artists who control the galleries, so they can get revenge on all the artists who have true talent…

    bravo Charlotte Young

    http://www.kenvallario.com

  • Ablortez

    You’re not helping yourself.

  • Ablortez

    Self promotion is the only Artform.

  • Guest

    Priceless!