Visual by Tagul, which only works on the desktop version of this page – hover your cursor over the words to read in full
"There are so many beautiful flowers in my garden, I took some pictures of them." So starts Jörg Colberg in his self-imposed mission to write an artistic statement for his own work. It's not until several minutes and rewrites later that we hear the final iteration, describing his work as "timelessly sublime and superbly majestic" relating to "humanity's ever-evolving disconnect from its innermost self".
While this might be parody, there are artist statements and performance programmes out there littered with posture and pretence. And how we communicate our work is an important issue, as the recently-launched website Interpretation Matters shows – artspeak can have a profound impact on audience experience, visitor rates, artist reputations and more.
So in a call to cull more tortured descriptions, we asked you to send us the most offending words, sentences or paragraphs of artspeak you've read. From press releases to portrait labels, you submitted in your droves to help us collect some of the most confusing and complex material going, and we've visualised some of the best (or is that worst?) examples above.
Enjoy, and let us know if there's anything we've missed by adding them in the comments section below.
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