For this exercise I have taken a very unscientific approach and have not drawn on a very wide assortment of artists. Nevertheless, there are a couple of things that have been particularly striking.
The first is how few of the artists I have looked at – all are ones whose work I like and a number of them are represented on my book-shelves – have any form of statement at all. To take just a few examples, Rinko Kawauchi, Matthew Genitempo, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Nick Waplington, do not say anything. I would also have included Alec Soth but he is already mentioned in the course material: his rather laconic description of himself does not really come across to me as a “statement” at all, beyond, I am a photographer and what I do is make photographs. In many ways that is actually the sort of statement to which I would aspire.
Elina Brotherus does not have what I would necessarily call an artist’s statement but her biography, on her website, I suppose serves the purpose in so far as it identifies the shifting strands within her work as it has developed over time. Rinko Kawauchi does, it seems to me, despite the strictures of the course material, let her work speak for itself, and has in effect left it to others to write her statement for her. As Charlotte Cotton put it in Aperture, “She shapes subtle, elegiac narratives without the aid of interpretive or endorsing text, leaving the reader nonetheless fully nourished by the extent of exquisite and intriguing sights to be found on this earth”. An elegant argument against the need for an artist’s statement at all!
A few statements that I did find all seem to me to add to the argument against the need for a statement in so far as they are simply not very well written. It is horrible to single out anyone but a couple stand out. Shane Taylor is a street photographer whose work I find subtle and intriguing. His statement includes the following: “His street photography explores classic, humanistic themes, drawing inspiration from classic street photography of the 1950s and 60’s.” My problems with this include the repetition of the word “classic”, the wooliness of “humanistic themes” – just what is that supposed to mean? – the misuse of the apostrophe at the end of the sentence and the inconsistent ways of referring to the two decades. A lot of people do not seem to know how to use an apostrophe properly, indeed do not know what it is really for and what its purpose is, and this is a classic – to reuse an already over-used word – example.
Another, and this came as something of a surprise given that he is also an academic, is Donovan Wylie, again for the repetition of a key word: “Utilizing a combination of conceptual and typological approaches, Wylie’s work integrates the conceptual architecture of power, containment and war”.
In neither case is my appreciation or understanding of their work enhanced by such language.
The one statement that I do really like, not least because it addresses one of the problems of language, appeared in the first issue of Provoke: “We now live in a world in which words have lost their material foundations, have become detached from reality and wander in space. Faced with this, what we photographers can do, indeed, must do, is capture with our own eyes those fragments of reality which are utterly impossible to capture with existing words, and actively keep creating materials to confront those words and thought. This was the instigation behind PROVOKE, and the reason we chose, admittedly a little self-consciously, the sub-title “Provocative Materials for Thought”.” Another anti-manifesto argument. Why should we tie a visual medium, one that is as airy as light itself, down with leaden words of clay?
Taking a slightly different tack, it was illuminating to go back to Sasha Wolf’s book. Rather than speaking in terms of any sense of manifesto or statement, each of the artists that she interviewed simply talks about how they approach their work rather than trying to categorise and anatomise it. This is an approach I find much more enlightening.
My inclination, it should by now be clear, is to steer clear of artist’s statements and their potentially limiting, or just plain embarrassing, nature. Nevertheless, for the purposes of this exercise if nothing else, I am going to make an attempt. The link referred to in the course material appears to be bad and as there is no indication of what the article referred to is, I have done a bit of hunting in the UCA on-line library and found a couple of articles that are helpful. I have not gone through the exercises outlined in Goodwin’s article but have at least thought about this sort of approach. Conor Risch’s piece is perhaps more immediately helpful and practical. What I get from these, if nothing else, is that I should keep things simple, so here goes:
“My current work is concerned with the role landscape can play as a place that contains and records memory. I am also interested in how human relationships with the landscape affect that memorial function and can give places particular meanings and significance beyond being merely a geographical location.”
I think I still do not like it!
Cotton, C, (2004). Rinko Kawauchi Utatane. Aperture No. 177
Goodwin, A, (1999). Writing an Artist’s Statement. Ceramics Monthly, May 1999, Vol. 45, Issue 5.
Nakahira, T, Okada, T, Takahashi, Y, Taki, K, (1968). Provoke No. 1. Tokyo: Nitesha
Risch, C, (2017). Conquering the dreaded artist statement: expert advice for writing about your photography. Photo District News, Vol. 37, Issue 8.
Wolf, S, (ed), (2019). PhotoWork: Forty Photographers on Process and Practice. New York: Aperture
Mark Robinson's OCA Landscape, Place & Environment Blog 
One thought on “Exercise 5.7: Prepare your artist’s statement”