Have you ever had trouble figuring out what to write in your artist statement and the deadline for sending it off is in half an hour? Ever heard of such thing as an Artist Statement Generator? Well, don’t go deleting your drafts just yet, but for a little procrastination break and some laughs they can definitely be of good value. And who knows, you might even get some ideas or cool words out of them.
- The first one is a project called 500 Letters created by Jasper Rigole in response to a curator asking him to send a statement of 100 words or 500 letters as quickly as possible. Here is the ‘first letter’ that he responded with. The generated text is relatively long and not too personalized, full of ‘big’ words (which was probably completely intentional). The funny (or sad?) part is that the generated statement could very well be copy-pasted by an artist and presented as the ‘real deal’ and many people wouldn’t know any better
- The second generator is more concise and easily modified to suit your needs. It is no less or more of a joke than the previous example but in this case the joke is a lot more obvious. At first glance the outcome seemed rather absurd but after a little tweaking I think I actually managed to generate a statement that might not be far from the truth. The best thing about this 10gallon generator is that it reminds us artists that our statements should not always be too serious – a little humor never hurt anyone.
Here is what my generated statement looks like:
Through my work I attempt to examine the phenomenon of line drawing as a metaphorical interpretation of both Warhol and anonymity.
What began as a personal journey of depressionism has translated into images of architecture and faces that resonate with caucasian people to question their own whiteness.
My mixed media drawings embody an idiosyncratic view of in-betweenness, yet the familiar imagery allows for a connection between Mona Lisa, pop culture and yourself.
My work is in the private collection of Oprah who said ‘Holy shizzles!, that’s some real exponential Art.’
I am a recipient of a grant from Folsom Prison where I served time for stealing mugs and tie clips from the gift shop of The MoMa. I have exhibited in group shows at Starbucks and Apollonia, though not at the same time. I currently spend my time between my kitchen and Berlin.
I think this absurd statement actually has a lot of truth in it regarding my work. I also think Andy Warhol would have loved the idea and is probably turning around in his grave for not having thought of it himself. Have you ever experimented with any artist statement generators? What were the results? I would love to see what came out of it so please feel free to share a link in the comments!
Related articles
- Artist’s Statement (kikisfranceadventures.wordpress.com)
- How to write an Artist Statement (creativepractices200.wordpress.com)
Between the lines 