How to Give an Artist Talk

Introduction

At one point or another, you may be asked to give an artist talk. This could be to introduce yourself and your work during a residency, or for a showcase night where you’re asked to share your practice alongside other creatives. Maybe you’re asked to come to a school to talk about your career and accomplishments. Whatever the occasion, you may be feeling nervous about public speaking or compiling your work into a cohesive presentation. That’s what this support guide is for: a one stop shop for how to give a memorable artist talk that you feel comfortable and confident about.

Part One: The Talk Itself

Giving an artist talk is a great opportunity to provide insight into your practice that you can’t really give anywhere else. There are obviously lots of different places to talk about your work - an artist statement, the didactic panel beside your work in a gallery space, a publication, interview - but here, you get to take your audience on a journey.

You can consider things like:

• What were the crucial moments in your practice?

• The turning points?

• The discovery you made that committed you to your art?

• Times that involve emotions are the most engaging and memorable for your audience.

a) Collating your thoughts: getting started

When you sit down to start writing your talk, try not to worry about the final draft yet. You’re just going to stress yourself out because you might not know where to start or how to formulate your thoughts.

Below I’ve listed some questions for you to answer. Write a couple sentences for each - even if you don’t end up including them in your talk, it’s good to think about, to get keywords and concepts down on paper:

• What is the most important part of your creative process?

• What motivates you?

• Who are your biggest influences/inspirations?

• What was a time that you felt the most in tune with your creativity?

• Has collaboration ever been a part of your process? If so, how?

• Has there ever been a conversation you had with someone/advice you’ve received that has changed the trajectory of your practice?

• What’s an accomplishment you’re most proud of?

• When did you know you wanted to be an artist?

b) Creating your storyline

Once you’ve answered those questions, pick a few answers or key words and phrases that you feel best represents yourself and your practice. You can start to form a storyline, which ensures that your talk is dynamic, engaging and unique to you.

“The best talks — and not just artist talks — follow a storyline.”

Chicago artist and curator, Sergio Gomez follows this storyline to keep him on track when giving an artist talk in the context of an exhibition:

Story > the art process > influences or concerns > highlight key works in the show > final thoughts

He also suggests sprinkling facts around a story, and notes that most successful Ted Talks do this. “I believe a good artist talk will make the viewer engage more in depth with the work. The talk should provide context and present a point of departure for a deeper conversation between the viewer and the work,” says Gomez.

c) Stick to the three C’s

We’ve said this in most of our support docs but it always bears repeating, keep it: CLEAR, CONCISE & COMPELLING.

Don’t get bogged down with art jargon and complicated theories. This is not an opportunity to prove how smart you are, but an opportunity to communicate and connect with an audience. 

d) Preparing for the real thing!

Lastly, prepare for any questions you might get, so you don’t get caught off guard. This will make you feel more calm and comfortable when you’re up there. People might be curious to know more about your inspiration, process, experiences, or what’s next?

It’s so important to run through your talk with friends, family or peers to get a feel for how you’re going to articulate yourself, and whether your written version translates comfortably and in a tone that you’re happy with. The benefit of delivering your talk out loud to others, is that you can get them to ask you a couple of questions. Perhaps they’ve noticed a gap in your talk or feel something might need fleshed out more. If you don’t have anyone you can run it through with, try recording yourself and listening back to see if you spot anything you’d like to change.

The more practice you have, the better you’ll feel and better you’ll deliver your talk. Remember you know your practice the best!! Don’t be shy, you’ve been asked to give this talk for a reason!

Part Two: Presentation/Visual Component

You can’t really talk about visual art without visuals… or you could, but it’d be a lot of describing, and you’d probably quickly lose the interest of your audience. The purpose of a presentation is to visually supplement your storytelling. Here’s some things to consider:

1. Flow: think about how often you’d want to change the visual on the screen to captivate your audience. If you break up your talk into topics/milestones, maybe have an image for each of those and then an image for each work you're covering. 

2. If you’re spending a chunk of time on one specific work, maybe flick to the next slide and have some detail shots of the work or installation.

3. You might want to include a cover slide that has an example of your work along with your name, and optionally the event that you're giving the talk. When the presentation starts, click to the next slide as a visual indication that we’re starting. For example:

• Title: Georgia Tooke  

• Optional subtitle: Artist Talk for the Warren Editors’ Showcase

4. I’d hate to sound like a broken record but having high quality documentation of your work is imperative!! (Check out support doc here). You’re giving an artist talk: there are potentially curators, gallerists, collectors and clients in the audience so it’s important to be and appear professional.

5. When showing an image of your work include details like title, medium, year created, dimensions.

Part Three: Summary/Key Takeaways

• What takes a good artist talk and turns it into a great one is (as scary as it is) the public speaking. If you can feel relaxed (or maybe that might be a stretch - but as close to calm as you can be), then you’re going to deliver a fantastic artist talk. So practice lots!! Grab your bestie and a beer and go through your presentation with them as many times as you need to - I promise it’s worth it!! 

• Watch out for shaky language (“um”, “ya know?”, “like”, “I think…”, “I believe…”, “just”, “sorry”). These sneaky words can undermine you and your authority. Speak with confidence - this is your work and who you are - be proud!! This will drastically change the way you deliver your talk and how you’re received. 

• A compelling and engaging talk relies on storytelling, not on reading a bullet point list of stuff you’ve done

• Be CLEAR, CONCISE, and COMPELLING

• High quality images for your presentation

• Marry the talk to the visuals, create a flow that feels natural.

• Try and watch some artist talks to get a feel for what they’re like! If you live near a college or university that teaches art, there will likely be a visiting artist lecture program running throughout the school year. Or if that’s not an option, youtube your fave famous artist and watch one of their recorded artist talks for inspo.

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If you want to put this support guide into practice, we’ve developed a workbook! Check it out here.

We really hope this has been helpful in giving you some ideas for your how to go about giving a strong artist talk, and if it has, we’d love to hear your feedback! Let us know what works for you, and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

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Remember these are some tips to get you started, and that we’re both learning and growing with you! If you think we missed anything in this guide, just let us know!

Lots n lots of luv,

Shae and Georgia xo