(embiggenable) • iPhone
I WAS READING AN ENTRY ON A PHOTO BLOG wherein the picture maker, writing about the pictures in his/her self-published photobook, wrote about how a viewer should view / look at / understand the pictures. To be kind, the statement was kinda offered as a "suggestion". The "suggestion" even included, along with some artspeak, an obscure french phrase-which to be explained-to help the viewer along to "getting it".
iMo, telling viewers how to view one's pictures is, re: the artist statment, a Mortal Sin (in the Catholic vernacular, the worst kind of sin). It's right there alongside telling viewers what your pictures mean.
That written, I have no problem with artist statements, per se. However, I think an artist statement should be "short and sweet" and not go beyond the artist's statement about what the impetus was which propelled the artist to make the art. Even as simple as Gary Winogrand's statement:
“I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.“
On the other hand, perhaps no artist statement is the way to go. Why not leave it up to the viewer to "see" what he/she will? or, in other words, let a picture "speak" for itself.