Telling Stories Through Art: Docu-Series

Telling stories through art, what a novel idea. Hasn't The Beano been doing that for the last 80 years? It started badly for me; the front page link was to an artist whose name I can no longer remember, but her biog started with the biggest load of self-opinionated bollocks I've seen in a long time. If you can get some sensible verbage on there I might give it a second chance. As it stands .....

ok, so we're only allowed to comment if we say nice things, yes? I was keen to see what your site had that might be new, and was disappointed. Now, my comments were perfectly constructive, and if you don't like them then that's your problem. Get used to it; The Guardian newspaper might gush, Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail might not. More people read the Snail (I get it for the wife). Turning to the subject of waffle (the self-opinionated stuff) - please explain the following three phrases from your artist's biog on a page which includes some portraits, a headless nude, and a picture with what looks like a cow pat on its face - don't tell me it speaks for itself, because it doesn't. Don't ask the artist to explain, I want you to do it: 1) These images take up the notion of identity, particularly of the archetypal female, and echo of a time when, as a child, [artist] would draw mythological figures to pass time.2) Her style, then, is nothing if not intuitive of her own identity.3) Upon meeting [artist ] it becomes obvious that the actuality of women is more than an abstraction carried across her artistic pieces. This is the stuff that is really off-putting and prevents me wanting to explore your site any further. At this precise moment, these three phrases tell me that your artist has nothing to say that is worth listening to, so it's all hidden behind art waffle and I really would like you to translate it into English rather than it looking like something generated on www.artybollocks.com Your dancer, btw, has a far more captivating biog - and that's not just because I'm a musician

Intrigued by the threads, I clicked on the link. I too am puzzled. To me a portrait photograph of an artist, followed by a few paragraphs of intricately constructed, but almost unintelligible prose (such as 'This form of movement and the discipline of his routine enables him to stay present and tuned-in in an increasingly distracted society.') and a set of disconnected photographs undoubtedly serves as an advertisement for the artist. What I struggle to see is how it redefines art or tells a story. The prose is the main problem, I think. It is difficult to avoid thinking 'pretentious'.

Ah, a classic meeting of minds here, then.... I remember having to write an introduction for someone else's exhibition a good many years ago (most things I remember seem to have happened a good many years ago, but enough of my personal tragedy...): I found myself writing something about 'silently expressive landscapes', and thinking - what the hell does that mean? I think it's a good idea for anyone writing anything to stop now and then and ask themselves that same question: what does this really mean? Will those who read it understand it? Whose fault is it if they don't? The website is a work in progress. Let us give it a chance. But at the same time, I think phrases learned at a PR-person's knee do need to be jettisoned the second you get out of art college; or you will be jumped on with hobnail boots, especially by other artists. Do not speak like an exclusive art gallery, or 'curator' of an exhibition (and of course don't use words like 'curator' when you just mean the poor sap who put the thing together). I understand in most cases above what you or the artist were trying to convey, but they've been taught to think in waffle and need to have it combed out of them. You don't need to say 'I just put paint on bloody canvas, you daft beggar, what do you think I'm bloody doing?', although very often that's simply entirely true, but you don't need to wrap it up in chenille and tie a pretty bow around it, either. A word to the wise, from the seen-it-all-before.