One thing I decided not to do though, was to write it in the third person.
There’s a specific reason for that: it allows reviewers and others to cut and paste when writing about you - saving them effort, which may be the difference between being or not being promoted.
My artist's statements are only about the subject and exclude any references to photography or myself. I believe the subject of the work is the only thing that counts since my objective is to convey information about that subject.
You’re confusing two kinds of statement: the artist’s statement and the project statement. The former introduces you and your work in general; the latter describes a particular project, omitting biographical details (they can be combined into one document, if needed). Each serves a different but crucial purpose for an artist, and both are essential - curators, collectors, reviewers, etc., need to know not only about the specific work they’re looking at but also the artist’s background.
I gave my artist’s statement above, but each of my projects has its own statement, in two versions -short and long (long is never more than a page though). Here’s the short one for my ‘Insecta’ project (
www.richcutler.co.uk/photography/insecta/) - the long version can be read on my website.
Insecta
The urge for humans to classify is instinctual – a need to arrange the world around us into patterns, to form order from chaos, compels us from childhood to death. This desire became formalised in the sciences, and especially in taxonomy – the placing of creatures and plants into groups. The scientific collection so painstakingly created is traditionally seen as hermetic and privileged – akin to the archive: a repository of preserved knowledge and authority, often institutionalised in museums. But in actuality all collections are unstable, and time dissipates that which has been so carefully hoarded.
These creatures have died twice, first poisoned in killing jars, then turned by time into ruins. What remains are cul-de-sacs: their stored knowledge dissipated, their context lost.
Here's a followup question: what should come first-- the statement, or the art?
Deciding the statement before taking pictures almost seems impossible... but constructing a statement after taking a bunch of pictures seems like you're just describing the pictures you've taken.
As Chris Crawford says, serious photographers have a body of work that is:
(a) coherent - there are underlying themes and interests common to all the photographs
(b) divided into projects - each exploring a specific idea or subject (a project can be one image, but is usually several).
So, for example, Cartier-Bresson’s work is tied together by reportage and a special kind of visual narrative (what he called the ‘decisive moment'), and ‘India 1947-48’ is one project.
Serious photographic artists don’t go out and take shots of things that interest them at random. They will have a project in mind, and will have often written a ‘project proposal’ - an outline of why and how the project is being undertaken, perhaps including a rough statement. The project proposal is just a draft document, and may change radically during the project. Artists may also keep a work book or diary for the project, with notes, comments from colleagues, rough photos, images from magazines, etc.
Consider my ‘Insecta’ project again. This started after a friend had a house moth infestation, and a visit to the insect collection of my local natural history museum, The Booth Museum. After seeing an ad on TV for the perfume Obsession, I had an idea for a project: photographing moths as a metaphor for obsession. My initial thoughts were to photograph moths being attracted to lights, and also moth collections (collecting can be a form of obsession), and I was given permission by The Booth Museum to photograph the moth collections in their vaults not open to the public. However, over several months, the emphasis of the project changed, from being about moths and obsession to exploring insect collecting in general and what eventually happens to these collections (as in my statement above) - and as the project evolved, so did my statement (it’s important to keep the project proposal up to date).
So, having a statement before taking photographs is not only possible but necessary, although the final statement may differ radically.
@And Antiquark, you write “constructing a statement after taking a bunch of pictures seems like you're just describing the pictures you've taken” as if that’s a bad thing. Why? That’s precisely the point of a statement!
Lastly, proposals and statements are not just for artists but are also crucial for other photographers such as journalists.
