Isabel Castillo Genre Analysis When it comes to writing in any field or profession, genre is a term that everyone is familiar

with and understands. Genre is more than just finding similarities between pieces and grouping them together in a category. In Kerry Dirks piece on learning how to navigate genres, Lloyd Bitzer, a rhetorician, explains his theory on how new genres are created. When something new happens that requires a response, someone must create that first response. Then when the situation happens again, another person uses the first response as a basis for the second and eventually everyone who encounters this situation is basing his/her response on the previous ones, resulting in the creation of a new genre. This being said, genres are created and used more than generally acknowledged. Everything we write can be grouped into a specific category, because odds are someone else has had to write about a similar, if not the same, subject. Writing is an important part of every subject and a field that uses writing to communicate more than people realize is the fine arts. When thinking about genres in the field of art, generally our minds jump to movements in art history. Abstract expressionism, Impressionism or Surrealism were the first things that jumped to my mind when I first associated genre with art. Different genres of writing in art are just as important as the different genres of movements. Critiques evaluate the piece and provide feedback and opinion, in which the artist can apply to their work for improvement or completely disregard. Proposals describe and lay out where the direction of a piece is going to go and what

is entailed in the creation. Even though these types of writing genres in art are just as important, artist statements are the genre that I will be focusing on and analyzing the most. Art critics consider an artist statement a great deal in analyzing work because it is the core of information in a piece. Artist statements are one of the most used writing genres in the fine arts because no matter what level you are as an artist, it is a necessary tool in the process of creating and concluding a work. There are numerous ways to write a successful and enlightening artist statement. The two routes that I will be focusing on are constructing statements in first and third person. For example, in Zhang Huans artist statements, a Chinese contemporary artist, he doesnt speak about his inspiration or the drive that was needed to create his pieces; instead it is about finding the common thread throughout his work. I really want to keep my work away from minimalism or conceptual art, because I want to do something very different, to dramatize it, to tell a different story about it, to contextualize it very differently, and make it part of daily life. Its not something so far removed from reality; its a different type of social realism. Huan describes his work without actually describing the piece, which is an approach many artists take in analyzing their own work. In relation to knowing when to use first and third person artist statements, Dirk used a situation involving a ransom note as an example of defining a rhetorical situation. She created a scenario where a man kidnapped a girl because he desperately needed money. This man needed to leave a ransom note to the girls father that would be intimidating enough for him to comply with his monetary demands. Dirk drafts out three different options, with three different approaches.

Simply by reading the options, there is a definite right answer. She goes on to discuss why that is the obvious right answer. All of the approaches qualify in the genre of being a ransom note, but for the rhetorical situation, only one fits. The reason I am using this example is because it applies to the rhetorical situations of an artist statement. For a gallery setting, when an artist needs to include an descriptive statement of their piece, they are not going to include a statement written in third person about them. A third person artist statement tends to be more of a biography and a description of the artists life more so than an actual description of the art. When viewing art in a gallery, the viewer tends to want more of a explanation of why the artist made what they made. Sarah Schmerler, an art critic, writes about different tones that an artist statement can take. One of the tones is the why I make what I make statement. These are the kind of statements that are used most among student artists, not just established artists. Also, the reason that artist statements are included in galleries is to guide the viewers thought process and exploring in a more specific direction. In the ArtAsiaPacific Magazine, a writer Angie Baecker wrote a statement on a few pieces by Zhang Huan. The difference between this artist statement and the one written by Huan himself is that there is a larger focus on the context of the pieces in the one written by Huan. Baecker focuses more on the life of Huan and how the life that he has lived has influenced and inspired his pieces. For the rhetorical situation, the third person statement makes the most sense. In the exploration of genre analysis in the art world, I discovered that in the reading by Carol Berkenkotter and Thomas N. Huckin, they analyze five different

principles that comprise a theoretical framework. I related the different varieties of artist statements to the principle of Form and Content of Genres. Berkenkotter and Huckin state, Genre knowledge embraces both form and content, includin g a sense of what content is appropriate to a particular purpose in a particular situation at a particular point in time. There needs to be an understanding of knowing when to include certain information and when to just omit it. Berkenkotter and Huckin also talk about how in the dynamic what constitutes true genre knowledge is not just a knowledge of formal conventions but a knowledge of appropriate topics and relevant details. An example of an artist statement that does not make use of this well would be Alfred Steiner. Alfred Steiner, an American contemporary artist, wrote a why I make what I make artist statement enveloping information about his entire collection, rather than specific pieces. In this statement, he almost goes into too much detail about his past before even reaching the concept of his work, which can confuse the viewer and create an unclear explanation. This is also related to my example of Zhang Huans artist statement compared to Angie Baeckers. Knowing the time and place to use a first and third person artist statement is significant, especially in considering who the audience will be. Baeckers statement is relevant in the ArtAsiaPacific Magazine because it is geared towards a variety of viewers who arent right there examining the work and are more interested in the artist himself more so than just his concepts. Images or descriptions of what the work is are also an important aspect that needs to be included with an artist statement if the work is not presently there. If a statement is in a journal or article, it is hard to relate and imagine what the artist is

talking about. Huans statement does not include an image or a description and the reason I do know what he is talking about is because I know the piece. If a viewer is unaware of who the artist is and their work, then the statement is lost on them. Knowing an audience is a huge factor in the field of fine arts and needs to be considered.