Professional Practices: Art Statements
“If we pause to reflect for a moment, it becomes clear that it is impossible to disentangle thought from action, language from art, mind from body. We can only ever know our relationship to art through language, as in the very act of thinking and articulating our response we have already succumbed to its structuring effects. The challenge then is to engage with this contradiction, to enquire time-and-time-again: what is the best language to use, how can this feeling or thought be most clearly expressed? All the while knowing that it is a task doomed to failure, as art and language, thinking and writing are not separate but inexorably entwined. Yet sometimes we must provisionally think of them as such in order to challenge our accepted practices, to think about the politics behind why we choose the words that we do, and why language works the way that it does.” - Victoria Horne, quoted from here.
For better or worse, writing is an essential component of being a contemporary artist and becoming an articulate and effective writer can only strengthen your art making practice. Regular reflection and writing about your work will aid in your ability to invite others into conversations about your work, engage art historical and theoretical discourse, and comment on trends in contemporary art.
The main objective in writing an art statement is to provide your reader with information about your ideas, inspiration, and the context by which you want your work to be viewed and experienced. The statement also gives you a valuable opportunity to define for yourself the critical conversation you want to engage through your art.
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Art Statement #1
Be honest with yourself and take stock of what you know about your work, process and ideas. Consider the following questions:
What am I doing? How am I doing it? Why am I doing it? What influences me most? How does my art relate to the work of my contemporaries? What do I want others to understand about my work?
For the first draft of your art statement, please address the above questions in a document that is roughly 3-4 paragraphs long, no longer than 1 page.
Have a printed copy of your statement ready to turn in at the beginning of class on Tuesday, March 7th.
Images above:
2 views of a performance by Caroline Wright, an artist based out of England, called “Repeated Deaths”, a journey of words, thoughts and ideas encouraging viewers to consider what it means to speak and write and how these two methods of communication differ, join, separate and collide.
