‘The Artist's Biography’
2017
Artist Book
Edition of 100
Produced for the Toronto Art Book Fair
What happens when an autobiography is written by everyone else but the artist themselves? Using the Artist Bio as a format, Teresa Aversa looks to explore the history of this type of biography, self-promotion and a form of writing that is ubiquitous within the art world. The artist bio can often be a boring or benign thing, which mostly gets overlook within the context of an exhibition - this piece of writing becomes a token or marker of ones accomplishment and a resume that is supposed to sum up one’s entire art practice.
How does one distill a life’s work into 250 words? How does one make the sentences pithy enough that the viewer will read the whole thing? How does one sum up all the nuances and manias that make up an entire art practice in a few paragraphs?
To explore this the artist sent out a call for submissions asking other people to write it for her. 22 people responded.
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
(IN ORDER OF THEIR SUBMISSIONS)
DAVID HANES
MIKE WARD
IVONA KUCEROVA
COLEMAN YOUNG
KARLA HEWITT-BLACKIE
NICK KOZAK
LINO JEAN
RAJNI PERERA
FARHIA MOHAMMED
JESS SANCHEZ
CAITLIN KEELEY
GAVIN WHELEHAN
AMY POULIOT
DARLENE HUYNH
SANDRA ALCOCER
CATHY CARNOVALE
JABARI ELLIOTT
SARAH GLADKI
ROHAN RAMSAY
JUSTIN XAVIER
ELISA GILMOUR
LINDSEY CEPEK
TERESA AVERSA
9" X 6" PERFECT BOUND BOOK.
Available for purchase here
