Artist’s Statement by William Dolan
(Name Withheld) is a multi-disciplinary conceptual artist living and working in Manhattan. Her work explores interrelations, interpretations and influences of the concepts of identity, human nature, context, perspective, the role of the image, and the role of the viewer.
An artist’s statement is often times more important than the work. The above statement (name withheld for privacy) seems incomprehensible at first, in a pseudo-intellectual way. It sort of puts the artist on a higher plane, but as I read it over a couple of times, it seems to be just a fancy way of saying “anything goes.” The statement is really just a generic description of making art. I could replace “multi-disciplinary artist” with “painter” (or just leave it since I do graphics as well) and “Manhattan” with “Chicago” and use this statement for myself.
By dressing up a somewhat broad definition of art like this, the artist and her art seem to be more important than it really is. That can be the difference between making an important cultural contribution, or a pile of garbage.
Category: Articles, Essays | Tags: advice, career, commentary 7 comments »
December 29th, 2008 at 9:45 am
I’m waiting for the day when the Artist’s Statement becomes the actual piece of art (maybe that’s been done already?).
December 29th, 2008 at 11:59 am
This kind of artist statement does not make the artist and the art sound important, since it says nothing about what the artist is actually doing or thinking and gives no insight into the artist’s point of view or the art. I would hope other artists would not emulate it. Look instead, for example, at Anne Wilson’s artist statement: it concisely covers larger conceptual ideas while integrating the artist’s point of view and approach.
Perhaps the concept of most artist statements is that communication is futile, or at least that trying to encapsulate all of one’s work in one or two sentences is futile. A lot of artists don’t write well, and others have a hard time putting visual, essentially nonverbal expressions into words before or after the fact.
I expect more from the artist statements of conceptual artists, particularly those who pay little or no attention to aesthetics, since the art is in articulating/manifesting the concept, if it is anywhere. The more external explanation the artwork needs, the better and more elegant the explanation ought to be … at which point, the art is the essay and no longer visual. I suspect Norbert is right: somewhere, someone has left out the art and just gone with the statement. Hopefully, it was not a crappy statement.
Without knowing the work of the artist that Bill quoted, I’d say that the statement aptly describes of a fair bit of conceptual art in that it basically says the work illustrates a list of broad concepts — which does the artist a disservice if the artist is doing more than illustrating.
December 31st, 2008 at 3:39 am
Both hilarious and sad.
December 31st, 2008 at 8:55 am
It seems that so much art talk (artist statements, wall text, etc.) can be described as “baffle ‘em with bullshit.”
December 31st, 2008 at 11:54 am
The role of this viewer, when confronted with such a text, would be to follow his own human nature by letting his eyes glaze over and moving on to something worthy of his attention, preferably a something with less empty verbiage…
March 11th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
The above statement has nothing to do with making art. The artist statement aaccompanies the work and cannot be interpreted without seeing the work. It is a marketing device, a soap box that either fills a space or drives sales. How about about a thread that discusses what art is? How about a thread that discusses how to make art that moves people about art? it can be as retinal as you like.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:48 pm
I think the artist statement should give context to the work. It shouldn’t really be used to explain the work or prop up work that doesn’t communicate very well, visually. Too much art relies on an essay to explain itself.
“…make art that moves people about art?”
That’s a really good challenge for artists. For a starter, I would say make work that is visually striking and interesting. Of course, there is a lot more to it than that.
As far as what art is, I think it has been answered many times in the last few decades (pretty much anything you want it to be). Perhaps we can discuss what art can do or can be.