I can't believe how much computer time goes along with being an artist today. If you'd told me when I was in art school more than thirty years ago how much time I would spend now every day on my laptop, looking up stuff, futzing with digital photos and writing (oh, excuse me, word processing), I would haven't have believed you. I'm doing it and I still don't believe it.
For me, the most onerous and least enjoyable parts of being an artist is writing artist statements. I just don't see the point. I'm a visual artist, trying to communicate visually. Why does anyone need a written explanation? Plus, for me, it's insulting. It's like an admission of failure. If I have to explain it, my work hasn't communicated whatever it was that compelled me to make it in the first place.
Right now I'm wrestling with three separate statements for three completely different things, so I can't just use one statement for all three. Each has to be 50 words. This is a relatively new and pernicious form of the artist statement: the 50 word statement-as-sound byte. What am I supposed to get across in 50 words? I've got grocery lists longer than that. I have one 50 worder almost finished, but the blasted thing sounds like some kind of constipated haiku translated badly from the original Sanskrit. I'm better with a few more words, but not too many. A hundred is good. Five hundred starts to sound like blather. A thousand gets really grandiose. And then there are the places that want statements that are 1,000 characters or less. What's a thousand characters between friends? Well, it's about 300 words and somewhat blathery. But manageable.
The horrible truth is that it's probably all about search engines and search algorithms. Google searches text, so the artist statements add some words to an image so Google knows how to sort it. The crazy thing to me is that none of this is real. I mean, yes, the show is in a real gallery and it is really taking place, and yes, there will be cards stuck to the wall with artist statements printed on them. But what's that got to do with anything? Who cares, and what difference does it make? I hate to get all existential about this, but none of it is as important as, for instance, what's the best kind of chocolate.
“An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.” Jean Cocteau
Deborah Dendler website
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