Plan and Play, Play and Plan: Defining Your Art Practice

by Janwillem Schrofer (Editor)

A guidebook for artists and those aspiring to be artists "Visual artist" is a term with manifold variations and meanings. But how, as an artist (or designer, photographer or other "independent creator"), do you become who you are and who you would like to be? How can you guide your artistic practice? Plan and Play, Play and Plan invites the artist to explore their own questions about their work, using analytical models to help them determine where they stand and what they stand for. The author Janwillem Schrofer was director of Amsterdam's Rijksakademie from 1982 to 2010, and thus knows from practical experience the complexity of the artist's dilemmas and how important self-reflection is for artistic practice. Looking back over his pedagogical experience and assembling notes and pointers gathered from interviews with a wide variety of artists, Schrofer has developed an appealing guidebook intended for artists and those who wish to become artists.

Genres: Art, Design

285 pages, Paperback

Published June 26, 2018

Reviews

[Amelia · Rating 2 out of 5]

As other reviewers have stated, this books uses a lot of long words to say very little. The only part I found valuable was the different definitions of artist roles (artist in the studio, artist as an educator) but felt the rest difficult to get through with unnecessary diagrams. Beautifully designed but perhaps more style than substance.

[Suzy · Rating 1 out of 5]

A lot of words about nothing. Too much words about approach and coming about and a lot of irrelevant information. Few ‘practical’ models are common models and are of no added value.

[steph · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were some interesting topics covered in this book but mostly it felt as if Schrofer was stating the obvious.

For the artist case studies I found it annoying that artworks referenced weren't displayed however, those on display often weren't referenced in the text.

Towards the end there were more actionable insights with a broader application which I found useful. I also think the reflection prompts would be beneficial.

Maybe I would have got more out of it if I was an artist.

[Cole Blouin]

Helpful!