12. The Home Page (The Website/The Personal Web Page)

The communicative purposes of the artist’s personal home page include

·         informing the public about the artist’s practice(s), experience, creative endeavors,

·         self-promoting,  advertising for own exhibitions, works, and blog,

·          marketing oneself (with the final business goal of selling works),

·         increasing visibility in the art world, creating an online identity as an artist (as opposed to being part of a network, like in the case of the services of social networking; of course, the artist may well choose to be part of these, too),

·          establishing contact with possible buyers (either directly or through the galleries representing the artists).

NOTE: the homepage is the first page (a kind of cover page) of the website. The site's web pages are accessed by clicking the provided menu buttons.

the moves

M1. Identifying the artist (through his/her name, and sometimes the type: e.g. painter, sculptor, etc.)  

M2. Introducing the contents list of the site (through a navigation menu) 

M.3.  Biography + credentials (as very short biographical details and a short text relevant for the type of art s/he creates; sometimes even an artist statement may be offered; also present is the list of exhibitions and awards)

M.4. Current and upcoming events (advertising for ongoing and future exhibitions or other events, by also offering exact information about location and time) 

M.5. “Bibliography” (actually a number of texts written by critics about the artist’s works and exhibitions; sometimes there may also be offered some exhibition catalogs; seldom, there are even texts produced by the artist) 

M.6. Online gallery +/- shop (images of the works produced by the artist +/- accompanying texts describing them, their location, the exhibition where they were displayed; when the artist uses the site as an online shop as well, the facility of buying the work are also offered here, or, in the case of represented artists, there may be a link to the site of the representing gallery) 

M.7. Establishing contact (address, e-mail, links to the representing galleries).

The lexical and semantic particularities of the artist's personal page differ from those of the blog in the use of the third person, as opposed to the first, signaling a lack of a “conversation” with the audience; instead, the artists prefer to display the credentials here as a list of exhibitions and awards (the longer, the better), and the texts art critics wrote about them (of course, the one praising the works); very short texts are offered under the form of exhibition labels, accompanying the images and informing about the work of art shown in that image.

            In conclusion, the artist’s personal page is both an informative and an advertising genre.

Task: Why should artists have their own websites/home pages? 
Deadline: May 25