Friday, November 16, 2007

Art Speak

I get so tired of that gobligooke art speak stuff you see in Artist Statements. A visual artist should let his work speak for itself and not try to aggrandise it with flowery verbiage.

Paul Strand says it better than I ever could.

"I find in most cases that what the artist says about what he is going to do, or what he has done, is an inadequate and not very meaningful statement. The thing is the work itself, and in a sense the artist should not be asked for the philosophy of life upon which he bases his work. The work is the basis. The work is the thing itself."