The artist statement: more important than ever.
I hopped on the Baker Artist Awards site again last night to take a look around. Many new artists have joined over the past month, and currently only 18 days remain for voting. The whole JPG Magazine debacle has kept me thinking about user-generated content and the widening pool of artists, especially digital artists and photographers.
While I love the Baker Awards overall, I noticed a lot of entries last night with no artist statement. I include in this category folks who wrote along the lines of “through my paintings I hope to capture everyday moments and the relationships between people and the space they inhabit.” Just as it disturbs me when I receive woefully inadequate resumes at the office, I am troubled when I see up-and-coming artists disregard one of the most basic expressions of professionalism in their craft.
The artist statement provides conceptual backing for a body of work. Ideally, the content and subject are articulated clearly to give the reader an accurate impression of the art even without actually seeing it. The artist statement also provides a forum to discuss metaphors, themes, and/or issues present in the work.
While visual art is about creativity and sometimes breaking the rules, galleries and juried competitions always ask for an artist statement. If there isn't enough content to craft an effective statement, the work just isn't ready for the professional arena. In an ever-expanding art world, these details gain greater importance, not less. Faced with a glut of images, jurors have an obligation to single out and reward artists whose work is well-considered and well-presented. Truly good art is a marriage of technical skill and great ideas, and anyone who has defended their images through a long critique knows it's about much more than being able to tack pretty pictures up on a wall.
It's a competitive world out there, and Baltimore's artists need to recognize the amount of foundation money at stake here. In a month or so, one of us will be awarded a $20,000 prize. With 496 entries so far, work that seems conceptually incomplete will be easy to weed out, and I foresee the winning art being both thought-provoking and well-executed.
Do you agree? What hallmarks of professionalism and care do you look for in visual art? Please add your thoughts in the comments.
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An artistic statement is vital to a body of work. I don't know how you can evaluate a piece of artwork outside of two things: 1) what the artist wants it to do, say, or be, and 2) what it actually does, says, or is. From a conceptual standpoint, with the overload of information people deal with on a daily basis these days, meta-data is key to sort it all out. From a practical perspective, it's just easier to sort through something with a description. If I can sort easily, I'm more likely to find something I like, and I'm more likely to give something I like a better review. It's always better for the artist to give the viewer a hand, and as you say, it's significantly more professional.
I agree. To me, displaying a portfolio with no statement is as bad as a statement with no images. In a situation where I'm expected to develop a well-rounded opinion on someone's art work (e.g. cast a vote for the Baker Awards), I just can't process the images fully without a statement.
The comments you make about artists' statements kind of bothered me since I read it. It reminded me of the day I was at the Solowey studio for an exhibit when I overheard Alan Fetterman state to David Leopold (the curator) that he could never consider a piece of art for a ribbon if it was on pre- stretched canvas. How could he take the work seriously if the artist was not serious enough to prepare their own substrate. WTF???
How about if it was crafted well, or conveyed the artist's emotions? How about if it moved someone enough that they would plunk down their hard earned cash to buy it? I have no artist statement. I paint scenes that made me feel good and peaceful, and I hope to convey that point to the viewer. That's it.
Artists need to concentrate on doing good work, not ancillary items designed to impress pompous judges. A young artist may be intimidated right out of their craft because they do not have the technical skills (or time) to prepare a substrate or the literary skills to develop and write an adequate artist statement, whatever that is. It concerns me that too many talented people are out there unknown because they just did not want to have to deal with the peccadillo s of the art community.
Thanks for commenting! You raise some tough points.
When we're talking about galleries and $20,000 prizes, I don't draw a difference between a "pompous judge" and a pompous hiring manager. If you're interviewing for a job writing for a newspaper, you'd think how you practice your craft should stand alone. It hardly ever does. No one wants to sell themselves with a resume and interview, and many people don't enjoy writing artist statements. However, when it's a matter of career (especially in the case of a full-time artist), we just have to do it.
I wonder if the nature of creative work inevitably leads to disenfranchisement because we don't generally want to associate professional competition with our work. I've had to ask myself at the office, "what if this person is a great candidate who just wasn't able to write a good application and create a resume?" Ultimately the answer is obvious. A statement doesn't have to be long -- 200 words will do -- and I think it's reasonable to expect people to write one or seek help from someone else.
Then again, "visionary art" (work by untrained artists) is a market unto itself, where I suspect these rules apply much more loosely.