Solo show Richard Meitner - Wurst that could happen

Non statement

For the last 20 years, when I’ve been asked to draft an artist’s statement, I’ve done so with less relish each succeeding time. At first, I didn’t know why this was, but on analysis, it became clear to me why this seemingly small ‘service to the viewer’ was something I was no longer particularly happy to undertake. It is because at this point in my career it is my deep conviction that the words we most often use to describe art, more often get in the way of a deeper understanding and appreciation of it than serving those goals. Why is that?

I am convinced that it is because the world of words is the world of clarity and precision, in fact that is exactly what our spoken and written languages were invented for. Using words we can succeed to very quickly narrow down the focus of our attention, eliminate confusion regarding alternative paths that our thoughts might take, rapidly and efficiently. The world of art by contast is one where those many and various alternative paths our thoughts and feelings might take on making or viewing art, are called up during the experience, and then need to be actively preserved in our conscious and unconscious awareness, rather than excluded from it. In my view, that is the very lifeblood of art’s power to move us. It is literally because of that that art can speak to us and move us in ways that words cannot.

In my work I am influenced, moved and motivated by many different ideas, experiences and feelings. What my work means to me is something I cannot put into words, both because that is never singular, and because those meaning reside very largely in the realm of the unconconscious, i.e. that very large and important part of my existence where I can keep and know things without being aware that they are there, working, moving and changing me .. What meaning my works might carry for a viewer is most certainly something, or many things, entirely different, as different as people are from each other.

Art, like English, French, and every other coherent system of words, is a language. But a language of words is characterized by the premise that each participant in that language understands almost exactly the same thing when it is spoken. This is very, very different with the language of art. That difference however, although this seems in contrast to current popular opinion, is in no way a problem that the artist, or curator or art historian or theorist can or should solve. My own conviction is that the unavoidable lack of certainty about meaning in art is THE critically essential basis for the richness and diversity both of what we can express as artists, and what we can understand and feel as viewers of art.

So in the end, I’ve now drafted this artist’s statement, one wherein I hope it will be clear that I am simply trying to explain exactly why I don’t want to try to explain anything about my work. The work should, if I’ve done my job well, by now be laden with meaning, not one but many of them. It should on its own have enough presence and power to captivate and move some viewers of it to thoughts and feelings of value to them. And the artist should really now remain silent.

Richard Meitner-Amsterdam- March 31st, 2016