9. THE ARTIST'S STATEMENT AND RÉSUMÉ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3uJlIseOU0

Communicative purpose:

• the self-assertion of the artist's personal aesthetics/philosophy underlying his/her work in general, or a particular work/exhibition
• stating the reasons for creating one work or the other, themes, identifying oneself with a style
• describing own techniques and giving reasons for own choices
• sharing all the necessary information in order to be better understood by the public
• advertising oneself
• arousing the reader's interest and curiosity

media: a short text used as

• marketing material on cards, flyers, mailers, posters
• accompanying slides, photos sent to different art curators, art dealers, etc, in order to get promoted or bought by them; participating in international art contests; applying for international creation grants
• quotations in art reviews, in different articles (to illustrate/support the critic's analyses, interpretations, and evaluations), in art history texts (as a research source)

move-pattern:

          Move I. Personal philosophy/ies and aesthetics

Step 1. Art philosophies and/or aesthetics the artist rely on; general ideas guiding the creation; perspective on art

Step 2. General themes, sources

          Move 2. Personal style and techniques

Step 1. Defining personal style

Step 2. Describing the favored techniques

Step 3. Suggesting originality

          Move 3. Commenting on current exhibition/work

Step 1. Stating the general idea (or the specific one), sources of inspiration

Step 2. Describing the process of creation

Step 3. Suggesting the meanings of the exhibition and/or the work (details, explaining metaphors, signs, symbols

discourse strategies:

• a very subjective genre, hence the use of the first person personal pronoun "I"
• a type of 'confession'
• using catchy words and expressions to attract the reader's attention
• avoiding prescribing a certain reading of own work while still offering some guidelines
• implicating the reader (suggesting a kind of conversation)
• avoiding obscurity (weighing the amount of the necessary"artspeak")
• writing with the audience in mind (who do you address? is it a professional public or a general public?)

TASK 1: What do you think about the following artist's statements? Which do you like best? Any reason why?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HlMATZOMv_IUZLFHIsjIkX65Jso20JOqdJrd9sWJ6DQ/edit?usp=sharing

http://www.flickr.com/photos/majasavic/5619671565/

http://www.wesleyfleming.com/about.htm

http://vimeo.com/10369690

watch?v=uzHXus7dQlw&feature=endscreen&NR=1

watch?v=7CFQY0Yf1iI&feature=fvwrel

TASK  2: Read through this article; the author seems to disagree with writing artist's statements by mentioning some dangers of writing them inappropriately; he expresses a personal opinion as to who should write the artist's statement. What do you think? Should it be the artist himself/herself to write the artist's statement, or should someone else write this text on his/her behalf? Give reasons.

anti-statement?

3. http://hyperallergic.com/69378/in-defense-of-the-artist-statement/


TASK 3: What would you say about yourself and your art in your statement?

HELPFUL

The artist’s statements are sometimes supposed to accompany the artist’s résumés; therefore, the specific information provided in the latter should be avoided in the former unless that is relevant to the works. The résumé is a rather official document, a personal marketing tool through which the artist establishes credibility when approaching a gallery or any other institution.  It offers more precise information about the artist: a short biography, education, experience in the field, and recognition, all presented simply and neatly. It is not a full text; the information is supplied as a kind of title list, with the following headers:

The name à educationà previous experience (e.g. apprenticeships, scholarships, creative camps) à awards à exhibitions (solo, or group, the city and country) à recognition (newspaper articles, interviews, TV or radio appearances à representation (if the artist is represented by a gallery) à commissioned works (in private or museum collections)

TASK 4: write your own résumé. Below are some web examples:

https://code.tutsplus.com/articles/5-examples-of-beautiful-resumecv-web-templates--net-8895

            The two genres are meant to offer a clear image of the artist in relation to both the general audience (especially the first) and specialized audiences (both)

DEADLINE: May 16

10. The designer's concept statement

—While artist’s statement refers to works already done (or, to artists’ works in general), the designer’s concept statement usually proposes future works, which will only become reality if the propositions are accepted by the customers; it may also refer to already concluded projects

—Note the use of the future tense and conditionals 

—Also starts from more general philosophies/aesthetics, sources of inspiration, becoming very specific to fit the exact customer (custom-made) project

—Presupposes a good knowledge of the customer’s interests, activity (previous research/documentation)

Task 1: What elements do the above statements contain?
Task 2: Write a design(er) concept statement for a project you are currently working on.

Deadline: May 16

8. The Art Review

Media:

• art magazines, newspapers of regional, national, international circulation
• journals devoted to different art forms
• radio + television broadcasts
• the Internet (including blogs)

Audience:

• the general public; educated, experienced readers, not necessarily art connoisseurs; people who are interested in art and possess some knowledge and/or intuition about art; people who expect to learn something new about art, or just see art from different perspectives
• the members of the artistic discourse community
• undecided people (as to whether to visit or not an exhibition)
• people who missed the exhibition, or are unable to visit it, because of its distant location or lack of time and who are counting on the intelligent writing of the art reviewer to get an idea about a specific art event

Communicative purposes:

• to inform the public about a current, or a just-concluded artistic event
• to promote an artist, an exhibition (gallery or museum, why not?)
• to offer the audience an evaluation of the show/exhibition (as personal, but expert opinion)
• to competently describe the most representative works
• to competently interpret the meanings of the works, by offering the necessary evidence to support interpretation (from within and outside the work; iconographic + iconological interpretations) -- the previous purposes are those of art critique
• to convince/persuade the public that the effort of visiting the exhibition is worthwhile, or, on the contrary -- similar to advertorials
• to persuade the readers to become art exhibition goers/expand the art public
• to educate oneself and the audience; develop artistic taste; fight against bad taste -- the last two purposes coincide with art education' purposes

Authors:

• art critics, art historians, professional writers, journalists, philosophers (aestheticians, art theorists), authors of TV and radio series and programs, bloggers, church people, etc.
• must have(s): enough experience to offer reliable evaluations; honesty; analytical, open mind; writing experience (offer that amount of information the audience needs; provide the right amount of scholarly insights without getting into too many boring details; maintain the reader's interest by varied rhetorical devices and discourse strategies); knowledge of the different (artistic) ideologies; knowledge of the art market.

Size: rather short, concise (500-600 words)

Move pattern and discourse strategies:

Move I (WHO + WHEN + WHERE)

1. catching the reader's attention by using the appropriate rhetorical devices (e.g. a rhetorical question, a paradox, a figure of speech)
2. offering specific information about the exhibition (when - the period; where - country, town, gallery, museum)
3. offering some information about the artist(s) (a very short biography)

Move II (WHAT; developing a controlling idea about the exhibition)

1. offering a general picture of the show and a first evaluation
2. different discourse strategies:

• the historical approach of the works (chronological)
• an unpopular opinion
• an analogy
• what one expected vs. what one got
• a comparison (between works of the same artist, of different artists, between styles)
• the first impression (initial impact on the viewer)
• the strength/originality of the artist
• a question (either rhetorical or one that will be answered in the following move)

Move III (transition)

• ensuring the coherence of the text
• relating the previous information to the following

Move IV (reviewing works)

• analyzing artworks
• offering partial evaluations

1. describing + interpreting +/- evaluating work 1
2. describing + interpreting +/- evaluating work 2, a.s.o.

Note: only the most appealing works are to be taken into consideration (the most representative of the artist/for the show; the ones that the critic liked best, or, on the contrary, disliked)

• partial evaluations of the works are made according to some aesthetic criteria (implicit or explicit)
• are usually positive, or holding some reservations; when the lack of value is quite obvious, evaluations are negative
• rhetorical strategies include: avoiding ambiguity and clearly stating the value (using qualifiers and quantifiers- e.g. overstatements -hyperboles), or, on the contrary, cultivating ambiguity for the sake of politeness (e.g. understatements - litotes = saying too little); irony and rarely sarcasm.

Move V (concluding)

• offering a final, on-the-whole evaluation of the exhibition
• convincing the audience of the value of the show
• persuading the audience to visit the exhibition
• trying to predict the future development of an artist's work, based on the current show (speculating about future developments)
• implicitly persuading collectors to buy/or not some works

Tasks:


1. Find an art review. Give its title. Do you consider it a positive or a negative review on the whole? Why? Which are the positive aspects, and which are the negative ones? Do you have a clear image of that exhibition based on this art review? Do the interpretations given to the analyzed works help you understand the artist's themes?

2. Choose an exhibition you have recently seen and try to write your own art review of that exhibition.  

 Deadline: APRIL 24