4 Artistic Biography
In addition to the tabular form, it may also be necessary to use your own biography as a coherent textto compose. You have to be aware from the outset that this is a type of text with a completely different orientation! In no case is it about simply making complete sentences out of the building blocks listed in your vita. The result would be a rather dry text that would not be worth the effort to formulate! In terms of content it would not differ at all from the Vita. No, completely different skills are required here! In a formulated text, you have the opportunity to give direction to what is said, a personal touch and, above all, to breathe life into it. Design the text so that it is fun to read. Let the readers find out something they may have asked themselves while reading the Vita. Give you the exciting info between the lines.
Even if you now feel in the center of attention, in most cases it is advisable or even necessary that you write your Artistic Biography in the 3rd person (he / she) and not in the first person . This will save you from writing too emotionally. Because ultimately, the biography is about facts and the past. In the Artistic Statement (see part 5) you still have the opportunity to integrate the emotional aspect with regard to your art.
As for the contentyou have a completely free hand. Make it clear to yourself again and again that we are not in the “normal” world of employees and that we can take away certain artistic freedoms. Above all, this means that you can say goodbye to the “complete résumé”, never to be seen again. Especially in the artistic vita you can consciously leave out, in your opinion, rather unimportant details and concentrate on your own chosen focus. Often this is even necessary for a specific tender. Either the advertisement has a specific topic that you should focus on. Or the default is a certain text length and you have to decide which points you want to include and which you can leave out. Don’t forget, all these texts that you’ve written over time to archive. So you will probably end up with a nice collection of completely different texts! But of course you can just copy one or the other for a new advertisement every now and then.
Short biography
A special type of biography is the short biography, which may only be 50-100 words long. This is less about the “personality” factor and more about the very specific selection of key content. You have to think carefully about what is most important to you. Or. In some cases it can be helpful to just see how others are doing or have done it, for example when you publish something in a magazine that others have already published in the past.
