Mid-career artistry

I picked up this month’s ArtReview last week. It’s easily the world’s greatest art magazine and this issue’s cover stars at Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst. Holly is well-known to, I’m sure, quite a few of you and her ventures into digital media and AI were often the subject of my reporting in Imperica Magazine. It’s great to see Holly and Mat get the profile and recognition that they deserve.

Elsewhere, there is an interview with Josh Kline by Jenny Wu. I found a particular part of that conversation really interesting:

AR Speaking of pivots, your recent gallery exhibition Social Media was billed as your first foray into self-portraiture. Much of it isn’t self-portraiture in the traditional sense. The depictions of you are fragmentary and metonymic. I’m recalling, for instance, 3D-printed sculptures laid out on a table in Professional Default Swaps of just your arms and of computer keyboards, smartphones and other devices you use. But there is also a replica of your entire body in a plastic bag on the gallery floor — a work aptly titled Mid-Career Artist. Is this show indicative of a broader directional shift in your practice?

JK Bringing myself into the work is something I’ve done a bit in the past, but this is definitely a one-off gesture. I’m not going to suddenly start making work about myself. But some of the forms that I’ve used over the past 15 years are coming back in a new configuration, and I’m the vehicle this time. I’ve never done this much self-portraiture before or self-portraiture on its own. It’s always been me with a bunch of other people.

Kline’s work is playful and humorous: physical commentaries on contemporary culture. But, the title stuck.

Mid-Career Artist.

I thought that, whether I do it consciously or not, I’m working with a bit of mid-career artistry myself. Those of us between, say, 40 and 55 are all doing the same: a bit of reflection, a persistent feeling of vulnerability that we’re perhaps more… expendable, whilst also trying to inject a sense of fun and enjoyment into anything and everything that we do… because we have a clearer sense of boundaries in terms of possible and impossible behaviours at work.

Looking at a career from an artist’s perspective might bring out some of the more interesting, individual, creative work than wouldn’t otherwise be represented on a CV or LinkedIn bio.

Your career isn’t just who you worked for and the success that you achieved, although clearly those are important. It’s the stories that you can tell that come out of it, and the experiences that you have during your career that make at least part of who and what you are.

Careers are increasingly more artistic than scientific, anyway. They were scientific once, in that it was easier to have a job for life at a large local employer. Now, they are all about being creative, sometimes in the face of adversity, and sometimes in terms of applying some lateral thinking to get where you want to be. Where you are now is perhaps not where you expected to be when you looked forward at 16, 18, or 21, but that’s fine, right? The artistic process is often about either having a fixed endpoint and working through the best responses to it, or having no fixed endpoint and creatively managing the journey.

So, with thanks to Josh Kline, I’m a mid-career artist.

If you’re mid-career, then I wonder if you are one, too. If you’re earlier in your career, now’s the time to be the artist.