On Shtick
For a while now, I’ve been thinking about something that I will describe as shtick. It’s probably not the best word to use. But since I am in a challenging mood (mostly with myself) I don’t think it’s the worst way to describe what I’m after.
What I mean by shtick is when as an artist you’ve found your thing, and then you’ll stick with it: you stick with your shtick, and then you’re stuck.
There are two questions that aren’t fully disconnected from each other: is having a shtick such a bad thing? What do you do when you want to become unstuck?
When I wrote that you end up stuck once you’re comfortable with what you’re doing, I was mostly speaking from my own perspective.
I know that it has taken me a long to develop the various things I’m doing, whether it’s my photography, my writing, my thinking about and around photography. I do remember the periods very well when I was stuck trying to figure out how to do something, when I was not making any progress, and everything was merely one failure after another. I also remember how good it felt to have a break through and to finally be able to do what I thought I had wanted to do.
So I absolutely do not want to tell other people what to do — or how to think about this. Judging by what I see people produce, many photographer, artists, and/or writers do not seem to have a problem with producing something that is a variant (if even that) of something that they have done before. A new photobook, for example, might differ from an older one simply by the selection of photographs.
As a viewer or reader, I often find this boring. And about as often, I’m imagining myself in their position and wonder how one could churn out the same thing in endless variations (let’s ignore commercial aspects here).
But, again, I don’t mean to imply that this actually is a problem. It’s just that I could not imagine doing it. Or rather, in my own practice, I spend a lot of time trying to change up what I’m doing for the sake of growth as a photographer or writer or critic.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t need the growth for its own sake, in the way that capitalism has now trained us to reach for it. I need it because I know that even though it has taken me a lot of effort to develop the various things I do, in the end I get bored repeating things. Maybe that’s not the right word. I do get bored, but I also get uncomfortable.
And that’s why I use the word shtick, because for me, it implies something that’s bad, and the best way for me to kick my own butt (metaphorically speaking) is tell myself that I’m becoming my own cover band.
But it’s possible that I’m simply making my own artistic life too difficult. I don’t know. I thought I’d bring this up here, because maybe someone will email me to give me some insight that I don’t have.
Maybe thinking about this will help you in your own practice. If you’re still early in what you do, it might not even strike you as a problem. Or if you’re later in your career, you’ll think it’s crazy to create problems that simply aren’t necessary any longer.
I guess what I’m after is: what role does growth play in an artist’s creative life? If you look around, for some artists it plays a huge role, whereas for others it plays no role.
The above recent ten-minute long documentary about Kari Katayama is worth your time (make sure to switch off subtitles, otherwise you’ll have subtitles on top of other subtitles).
Poking around on YouTube, I then found this much older recording of a TED talk (now you need to switch on subtitle again). It starts out in an incredible fashion (I won’t tell you, just watch), after which Mari Katayama talks about her life. And at the end… Well, I won’t tell you what happens then, but it’s something that fills in a detail from the first video.
I’ve never become accustomed to streaming services. When I buy music (which doesn’t happen quite as often as it used to a decade or more ago), I buy it on Bandcamp, and I download the files. It’s mostly because I don’t trust music companies. I don’t want to be reliant on them changing things up. Apparently, that’s exactly what happened with Spotify: Kyle Chayka wrote about this here.
There was a recent swap of people between Russia and a number of Western countries. Russia received back an assortment of criminals and released a mix of hostages and political prisoners. Among the latter is a woman named Sasha Skochilenko, an artist who had protested against the invasion of Ukraine. Read more about her here.
“To give up isn’t always to lose out,” writes Kat Tang, “sometimes, it’s clinging onto what isn’t working that distracts us from what actually will serve us in the long run. The mentality of sticking something out to the bitter end often ends in exactly that: a bitter fig we never wanted in the first place.”
There was an incredible article by a German writer about Mr Rogers in a German art magazine. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Unfortunately, it’s only in German. If you can’t read German, maybe machine translation will convey the gist of it.
If we just had a few more such articles in this world that has grown so so cold, maybe things might get a little better. Maybe more people would realize that the world doesn’t have to be this cold.
Lastly, a short piece by Susannah Clap about Julia Margaret Cameron.
After I’ve sent out my emails, I sometimes feel like a squirrel at the end of winter: it’s time to start collecting a little stash of goodies again. Feel free to send things my way if there’s something you think might be a good fit here.
Thank you for reading!
— Jörg