Lik Koekjes (flowerbed with lik-koekjes)

Over the last year(s) I’ve been collecting words from artist statements, text about artist written by curators, galleries, wall texts in museums etc. Next to an overload of art-jargon, some words are used notably often. These are words that assign something to the work or the making of it. Words that – when just piled up on top of each other – sound more interesting than that they really convey meaning and therefor loose their strength. But used separately and with care, they have the power to actually give meaning to the work.

It is about words like “anticipate”, “relate”, “essence”, “meaning” or “perceive”. They all want to say something about the deeper meaning of a work, convey an intention or purpose. This is of course exactly what these texts are meant for – to articulate the essence of the work.

Sadly many tekst are full of these words without ‘getting any further’ than their own ‘importance’ as a means to sound eloquent and interesting and not making real sense about the work itself. Even though these words in themselves are really strong and beautiful.

For my cookies I’ve used a selection of these words, as a statement because I think they are used too randomly in texts just to make it ‘look nice’ and seemingly interesting; just like a sugar sweet layer of glazing…