The words we bring to art intend, at best, to translate the perceptual realm into the linguistic, anchoring sensation through definition. But, as we all know, that often doesn’t occur. The well known essay, “International Art English” by Alix Rule and David Levine skewers that premise, as does Tom Wolfe’s The Painted Word (1975) nearly forty years earlier, and a decade before that Susan Sontag’s “Against Interpretation” resisted language’s simulacrum of art. So on, down the line. And yet, words also serve to support, promote, highlight, associate, and adore the art they describe.
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Despite the odds, Seattle art shows, exhibitions, and installations managed to happen in 2021. And so, naturally, did artspeak. Last year I made a list of some of my favorite instances of "artspeak" from galleries, museums, and alt-weeklies around Seattle. Here's our working definition of the term:Artspeak is slippery and often uses big words or ideas that sound smart but easily confuse. Adverbs are common in these descriptions, which frequently have multiple or contradictory meanings..
by Jasmyne Keimig • Dec 22, 2020 at 3:20 pm
It s been 12 months and I m still thinking about this instance of artspeak at the Frye Art Museum. JKIf you ve ever read a gallery press release or an art label, you ve spent at least a few moments confounded by some off-the-rails descriptions. Sponsored Enjoy 25% off every day on The Hollingsworth Cannabis Co. Find it only at Uncle Ike’s! Hovering at the threshold of recognition, Brewer s work teases the mind s impulse to identify recognizable shapes and discern hierarchies of information, read one gallery label this year. I remember standing in the museum for several seconds, unable to understand what Hovering at the threshold of recognition meant, much less what it had to do with delicate, fabric sculptures. That, mates, is artspeak.