I argue that an artist’s Self image can be seen in the bulk of his or her works and an ´image` of an artist – an auto portrait if you will – is eminent in his works, whether he wishes it or not. This image, seen in the sequence of an artist’s body of works, is a narrative, a Self Narrative – hence the term Self Narrative ART or SNART. I see art and art making as a journey towards ever more Self knowledge and hence comprehension of the world we live in and life at large. Man know thy Self! Is a statement contributed to Socrates and it stipulates that through that knowledge one can attain further understanding; for me, art is a key to that knowledge and SNART is the decryption. To know one self, one has to inspect – reflect, on one self. Mirror is therefore a vital element in SNART – in fact SNART is the artistic mirror!
‘consciousness’ in the function of self-reflexivity should be operating within the elements of the work (proposition) of art it self. In this way the subject of the maker is present and ‘humanifies’ the work. The proposal is for work which understands itself as a context which mediates (as it is mediated by and part of) the social context. The purpose of this is to eliminate the duality of the subject and the object which permeates the ‘objectivity’ of bourgeois thought. Our work must bring together, then the work and its maker in the process of locating both in society and history.
–Kosuth, Art After Philosophy and after, p. xxxiv.