The relationship between artist and gallery has been extensively documented in biographies with positive experiences, disappointment and litigation in about equal proportion and while some note a decline in the role of galleries as opposed to fairs and biennales, galleries continue to thrive. A well-known Australian artist once said to me ‘you must exhibit’ firm in the belief that as someone with a contract he was on safe ground. That scenario is rare these days with artistic self-reliance being the norm. At the base of all art displayed in the public sphere lies the premise that the interaction of art and audience is of prime importance. While art may be produced in isolation, the connection to the viewer is what drives the experience and for that to happen there has to be a viable process of delivery. The gallery system stands as one means to achieve that goal. However, in a sign of the times and art as a business, it wasn’t the connection between the art and the gallery but the separation of the artist and his-her work that arose again recently when I applied for gallery space.
What the gallery wanted to see was not examples of my work but my CV. Fair enough if I was applying for a job as a graphic designer or animator and experience was the key factor, but I wasn’t. Perhaps the art school I attended was a salient factor or the names of prominent collectors of my work or even museums who had invested in me as a cultural icon. I can think of any number of successful artists for whom art school was a non-event and even more who were not recognised until late in life or who sold little or nothing in a lifetime.
The most obvious aspect of a CV is that it deals with past history. An artist CV is likely to consist of bio, exhibitions, entries into competitions and if they are lucky, wins, residencies and grants. This is a portrait of the past and even with listing only the most recent accomplishments, looks backwards. Anything on that list is of its time and place and the assumption that it represents a series of high points in an artist’s career may well have more to do with taste, fashion and opinion. A winning entry into a competition, five years previously for instance, may have relied upon many factors including the composition of the judging panel.
The chance of achieving wins, grants and residencies is remote. An acquaintance of mine has a page-long list of shortlistings for all of the prizes he has entered without ever having won one and another made three unsuccessful attempts at a grant before finally having a submission accepted. What does it tell the reader of the CV? Persistence? Perpetual also-ran? Try-hard? In some ways it is similar to a history of employment and a would-be employer might consider a frequency of job-changing as being detrimental to being taken seriously The right balance can be hard to accomplish if there is indeed such a thing.
The experience reminded me of an art competition result of a few years ago where the winner was declared based upon the accompanying artist statement. Whatever criteria were being applied by the judges failed as a measure and is came down a choice of words. Someone had to win obviously.
Words are problematic in themselves. As any number of philosophers following the example of Derrida discovered, the deconstruction of words depends upon a variety of factors from agreed definitions to cultural loading. All art is open to interpretation and so are the words used to evaluate it. A CV and possible accompanying bio are necessarily selective, not just in the choice of words, phrases and sentences but in what can be read between the lines.
There are ample pro-formers for producing CVs and all claim to be superior to each other. One I looked had the added benefit of being able to list the art movements and ideas most relevant to the work. Being categorised and pigeon-holed may well rankle some artists who don’t fit any mould. But can the layout, choice of font and possible colour affect the reading? As anyone in advertising can tell you, all three are critical. Symmetry of composition suggests lack of dynamism and forward thinking as does aligned left. However, a page organised like a school project may well not achieve the desired result.
Every font has character. Try writing your CV in Olde English script or all in capitals. You may well need to include a string of emojis to make a clear point. But then again, the differences between Courier, Calibri and Arial may seem trivial but the reasons they are chosen for official documents comes down to just how official they look. Italic fonts denote something quite different than the plain slimness of Arial. Colour is also something else and colours take on different symbolic meanings in every part of the world to say nothing of both black and white being associated with death. Whoever is reading a CV is either consciously or subconsciously taking into account the symbolism inherent in the graphic choices.
On another level, a music teacher I once knew despaired when the penmanship of writing a score was no longer considered a valid tool of appraisal. Neatness trumped quality of composition in one sense and the advent of word processing, to say nothing of algorithmic templates, relegated handwritten scores to the scrap heap of history.
But what in the end has a CV to do with the artist’s work? My suspicion is that it all comes down to who you know. Perhaps I should have made a video. At least that way, they could have seen the look of disdain on my face.
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