The gallery wants a statement, I want to mail them a photograph of the back
Spent the morning writing the artist statement for the March group thing and it came out as nine hundred words of nothing. Deleted it. Wrote six lines. Deleted those too.
What I actually wanted to send: this piece is made from a photo of my brother's kitchen that I tore into about forty pieces and glued back together wrong, on purpose, because that's how I remember the room. There's a coffee ring near the corner. I left it.
Instead I have a document that says "explores the tension between preservation and loss." My friend Jen read it and said it sounded like a grant application for a hospital. She's right.
Anyway, my real question, and I'm genuinely asking: does anyone actually read these things, or do they just get filed and nobody looks until after the show. Mine's going in the frame on the wall and I keep thinking I should just print the six honest lines and let it be uncomfortable.
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Honestly the six lines you wanted to send are better than any statement. "That's how I remember the room" says more than "tension between preservation and loss" ever will, and the coffee ring line got me. I'd send the torn-up kitchen paragraph and let them deal with it. I've written two of these now for local shows and both times I rewrote it about four times until it sounded like a stranger, then went back to the plain version. Curators read so many of these that plain probably stands out more than polished at this point.
The rewrites-to-a-stranger thing is real, but I'd go further: the plain version is not just a safer bet, it's the only one that can be checked against the work. Anyone can write "tension between preservation and loss." Only you can explain why the coffee ring stayed. That is the thing a curator can look at the piece and see confirmed, and that is what makes them trust the rest of the sentence.
I write mine the same way now. What the material is, why that material, one thing I refused to fix. Done. The fancy words are for the wall label, and even there I keep them short.
one thing i refused to fix. that's the whole thing isn't it. i've been treating the coffee ring like a confession, but it's the only line in the whole draft a curator can walk over and verify. everything else is me auditioning.
i'll try it their way. material, why, the thing i left alone. if they want poetry they can hire a poet.
the four rewrites until it sounds like a stranger thing is so real. i think that's the trap, you start writing for the reader instead of the piece.
plain it is. i'll send the kitchen paragraph, coffee ring and all, and if someone at the gallery wants to know what it "explores" they can look at it.