Hello dear readers and subscribers. Welcome to another video with some practical career advice for artists. Today, we’re in my office, so we’ll be doing some office work for artists with a highly requested topic: the artist biography. How to write an artist biography and what does a good artist biography include? The artist biography is arguably one of the most important pieces of text and forms of communication for your art career. After reading, reviewing, and writing over thousands of artist biographies, we have identified all the main ingredients for a professional and industry-approved artist biography, empowering artists to have the best chances for success in the high-end art world.
Because even with an artist biography, there are some specific unwritten rules, expectations, and required information that we have to include if you want to be taken seriously by the art world. In this video, we’re going to explain these things and also offer a step-by-step guide, a step-by-step tutorial, even with our very own tool or spreadsheet, so you can’t make any mistakes and it’s the most easy way to generate your artist biography with the help of ChatGPT as well.
First, we must briefly discuss what makes a sound and good professional artist biography. Here at Kai, we offer career advice for artists, this for success in the highest realms of the art world. Pursue an artistic quality, critical recognition, and established representation. And from this perspective and objective, we must follow certain unwritten rules also when it comes to the artist’s biography. By doing so, by following these rules and showing that you know about these rules, they will think about you as an art insider or an art professional, somebody who knows what they are doing. They will take you seriously. And as a result, the artist’s biography is not written in the first person. It does not include jokes. It is not the ideal moment to show your personality as an artist, nor does it mean to be entertaining or poetic. In the high-end art world, the professional artist biography has a formal, almost academic tone. It is descriptive, concise, factual, and above all, professional.
Even more, we can always identify the following ingredients in those artist biographies in a specific structure. We always encounter references to name and surname. It is always very concise, most often in three paragraphs. They discuss the different media that define the artist’s practice, followed by a concise description of this practice, discussing the material attributes, the technique, but also the overall aesthetics of the work. Next, they briefly discuss the subject matter, followed by some factual information in the form of a recital of the most important and notable information from their artist resume. Think of notable exhibitions, collections, participations in art events, or, for instance, residencies and awards. But also the year and location of birth and where the artist is currently based.
Now that we have established what a good artist biography is, let’s move forward and write our very own artist biography. You could ask an art critic to assist you with this, but in this video, we’re going to show you how you can do it for free or to make the process a lot easier and avoid making any mistakes. And supporting our activities, you can also consider purchasing our spreadsheet tool for artist biographies. It will have a pre-designed prompt, ask you specific questions, so you simply need to fill in the blanks, and then you can copy and paste it and generate it. And there you have your artist biography.
If you’re unsure, we’ll run through it together, and then you can see if you can generate it on your own or you would like to use the spreadsheet in question. Step one is listing all relevant information in a spreadsheet. If you go through all the different artist biographies by those industry-leading galleries and artists, we notice the following details consistently reoccur over and over again in those biographies: name and surname of the artist, year of birth, place of birth, based in, and a recital of notable exhibitions, collections, and participations in fairs, residencies, major art events, awards, etc. And the archetypical structure, often the artist’s biography opens with a brief description of the artistic practice. So we encompass after the name and surname the artistic disciplines of the artist or artistic discipline, followed by specifying that artistic discipline a bit more in-depth, meaning the material attributes and the technique, followed by a kind of concise summary of what the artist is best known for.
As a result, we must try to write down these three elements/events separately, which sets us up for the opening paragraph of the artist’s biography. An example, for instance, here from Igoron Dinoni at Artsy: ‘Ranging from installations and sculptures to psychedelic paintings and large-scale drawings, Igoron Dinoni is an eclectic artist. His practice explores the relationship between opposing forces, day and night, etc.’ So here we see the medium is specified, what he is best known for. His most recognizable works are his colorful rock sculptures, vertically stacked rocks painted in fluorescent colors.
We can also briefly discuss or illustrate these topics by discussing some important projects or series of work. This is also exactly what we encounter in Marina Abramovich’s artist biography. In the second paragraph, we encounter exactly this: ‘The body has always been both her subject and medium, exploring her physical and mental limits, etc.’ We can also briefly discuss the subject matter a bit more in-depth, information about the artistic practice. As with our previous step, make sure to follow the instructions closely when using our artist bio tool or add the following bullet points if you would be working on your own spreadsheets: artistic discipline, type of artist, specifying medium, best known for, subject matter, and important projects or series.
Now we have all the information, the relevant factual information describing the artistic practice. So now it is time to structurally generate the artist biography with ChatGPT. So now that we have all the inputs and necessary information written down in our spreadsheet, in the artist bio tool or in your own spreadsheet, we’re all set to generate the artist biography with the help of ChatGPT and follow the archetypical structure for the artist biographies that we have identified throughout this article and video.
Congratulations! You have just increased your chances for success in the high-end art world with an industry-approved text. For more career advice, more tools, more webinars, and services, feel free to consult our overview page with career advice for artists. And thank you in advance if you have purchased our artist biography tool. We have priced that just $250. It’s a lot less than most online tools are charging, but we simply wanted to make it more accessible, more convenient for you too. So thank you in advance to support making these types of tools and videos. Thank you so much for tuning in today. Feel free to watch our video on how to set up your artist resume next. Support us on Patreon and please consider subscribing to stay posted for more contemporary arts. Bye for now!
