Artist Statement Template

After spending years going to various exhibitions and taking sometime to take in what the artist was trying to express through their work by reading the artist statement, when it was present. I think I’ve gotten the basic template down.

Artist Statement

[insert bullshit here]….something, something, Gursky, something, something……..childhood memories…… something, something..... a moment of artistic clarity (a.k.I took an LSD trip at the insistence of my fellow artists/sycophants) and or I just saw what was selling well and jumped on the bandwagon.... something, something.... passionate…something, something.... [insert some esoteric art movement]..... something, something.....Bob Saget.....something,something.....fin.

Often it feels like the statement is just tacked onto the end, to meet the gallery owners/ exhibitors/ curators/ juries request. An afterthought, rather than the core and the beginning point of the work, as it should be.

The only way one can come towards an objective way to judge and critique the work is how well the statement and the work presented are aligned i.e what the artist is trying to show is actually seen. Otherwise one is submerged down into to the murky world of subjectively and sycophancy.   

You have to have something to express before you can express it in a physical form. I guess the argument can be put forward that the art upon viewing, it should speak for itself. That to provide a statement or interpretation is dumbing down the work for the masses, that which to the truly cultured should be self evident. The other question raised is what if someone takes away something different from the work rather than the intended one of the artist has the art lost it’s meaning?       

If you can't be bothered creating your own, then you can always give the mob at Arty Bollocks[link], 500 letters [link], or 10Gallon [link] a call.  

Like I’ve mentioned previously [link] to be classified as art it should stop you, make you think and as a result look at the world differently. Thus you won’t be seeing any of the stuff posted here in MoMA anytime soon.