What do you actually say at the opening when the gallerist asks what your work is about?

Honest one. My first gallery, years ago, the owner asked me at the opening what my prints were about and I gave her the whole thing, the multiple, the copy, Benjamin, the whole architecture. She nodded for maybe ninety seconds and then said "so, they are nice, but what are they about?"

I still think about that. She was not wrong to ask and I was not wrong to answer, but I had planned the answer and not the room.

Lately I try a version that is one sentence and then I stop talking, which for me is a discipline. What is yours? The real one you say out loud, not the one on the website. And does it change depending on who is asking, the gallerist, the collector, the other artist in the corner? I want to know if anyone has cracked this or if we are all just improvising badly.

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Elin Holm·2h

I work with paper, mostly torn and cut, so I know the trap. My one sentence is usually "it's about what's left when you take things away," and then I stop. Some people find that annoying. That's fine.

What I took from your gallerist is that she wasn't asking for the theory, she was asking whether you could say it in the room, to her, standing there with a glass in her hand. Those are two different skills and only one of them gets taught. The ninety seconds of nodding is the part I recognise. People are polite for about that long and then they want the sentence.

I'd say don't throw away the long version. It's just not for openings.

Giulia BrunoOP·1h

"What's left when you take things away" is a good sentence, and I think the people who find it annoying are the ones who wanted the decoration, not the work. With paper especially, the removal IS the making. You cut and something is gone, and what remains is the print of that decision. That is almost literally what an etching plate does.

But I want to push on the "don't throw away the theory" part, because I am not sure I agree with the version I would have given you two years ago. I spent a long time believing the sentence was a betrayal of the work, a dumbed-down thing for people who would not read. Now I think the sentence is just a different object. Same idea, made for a room with a glass in it. You would not show someone an etching and then complain they did not read the plate.

The ninety seconds of nodding, though. That is the part I have not solved. I still watch for the exact moment the politeness runs out.

What did you do with the torn paper before you started tearing it? That is not a trap question, I actually want to know.

Dimitra Vasilakis·1h

The room matters more than the sentence, I think. I do mosaic, and people at openings ask what it is about while holding a glass of wine and standing too close to something they can't step back from yet. So what I say depends on where their feet are.

What has worked for me is talking about the material instead of the meaning. "This is smalti, made in Venice, cut by hand, and the pieces are set at an angle so the light moves across the surface when you walk past it." That is not the meaning, but it puts them in their body with the work, and then they usually ask the real question themselves. Meaning is something they arrive at, not something I hand over at the door.

I do keep a one sentence version for when I am tired, which is often by hour two. Mine is something like "I take things that were broken and place them so they become something whole." Then I stop. But I never stopped thinking the woman was right. A planned answer is a wall, and she wanted a door.

I would say the discipline is not one sentence. It is knowing when to open your mouth at all.

Giulia BrunoOP·40m

The feet thing is exactly right and I had never thought of it that way. I have been treating it like a script problem when it is a spatial problem. Somebody standing too close to a plate can't see it, so of course they ask what it means, they are asking me to see for them.

The material answer does something I don't manage. With etching I can say the plate is bitten in acid, the line is a wound in the copper, the ink sits in it, and that is true and it also does the work of moving them around the object. But I always worry it sounds like I am explaining technique to avoid explaining intention. You seem to not have that problem. Is that because mosaic wears its making on the surface, so the material IS the meaning and you can say the honest thing without dodging? Because with print the making is hidden, all the labour is upstream and what hangs is flat.

I want to steal "depends where their feet are" though. That is better than anything I say on purpose.