By Vannie Gama
You can hold me to publishing a proper article on this topic in the future. For now, since there are literally four articles ahead of yet another idea, I will keep a very brief outline of the issue for three specific reasons: for those who may be wondering why I call these collections of works (2025 and 2024) a catalogue rather than a portfolio; to take the opportunity to distinguish these four categories or, at least, present a critical angle on them; and finally, because all the material I found on the subject stated precisely that research on this is lacking. This last point is much more a motivation for future studies than the reason for this post in particular, but it may be useful for the reader to know that this is by no means a well‑established discussion in the art world. If you are another artist reading this text, it may also be an opportunity to ease some tension and demystify certain issues related to the formats that some parts of the market tend to dictate.
Let us begin with the easy distinction: art book (or “livro de artista”) and book of art. The art book is a language in itself, just like drawing and sculpture, although it can also be framed as a sub‑medium and technique of assemblage and collage (I should have drawn a diagram for this, but well, I will do that when I write something more substantial). Think of circumscribed circles: between assemblage, collage, and painting, we could perhaps place the art book. It is, then, an artwork in its own right. As an exhibition object or part of a performance, the art book has no intention whatsoever of being legible, since it does not even necessarily need to be made of traditional pages. Although more popular in contemporary art, the art book belongs to the eccentric objects of modern art and, historically, the designation of an artistic language was somewhat artificial, since the art book ends up being a radical version of a dense illustrated book from centuries prior to the age of printing. Generally, the art book is tied to manual techniques, although it can indeed be made digitally and printed in the form of a book, or it may even be a digital art book, a term that can also refer to digital interventions and digital exhibitions. An example I am quite fond of, something I consider a digital art book, is the artistic research published by JAR – Journal for Artistic Research; I recommend this one: El trabajo especulativo en la investigación artÃstica – cuaderno de notas by Sara Gomez .
A book of art would be the opposite of an art book. It is fundamentally structured to be legible in the traditional sense of text and literature as a medium, and it is commonly associated with art history books, sometimes especially well edited and diagrammatic in innovative ways, yet traditional in the sense of prioritizing the transmission of a body of information for consultation or for the training of professionals, or perhaps simply for curious readers and art lovers. A book of art may have an essential difference in relation to the catalogue, which is its length and complex organization, rarely limited to a series or categorization of elements and their descriptions. Books of art may be strictly theoretical or include visual material, as in the case of books about the work of specific artists or artistic movements, eras of art history, and they may also incorporate infographic or graphic influences beyond photographs or records of the real. Basically, we cannot live without books of art. A terrible addiction, in fact, since it takes quite a bit of money to sustain our libraries with these indispensable books of art. They may not be only historical books, but collections of essays, books on philosophy, theory, sociology of art, and so on. Technical, theoretical, more or less innovative, but certainly with a section of bibliographic references, a year of publication, and, in short, they are directly citable as well.
Regarding catalogues and portfolios in general. As Anne Cauquelin, one of my favorite authors in modern and contemporary art, used to say, needs are created, a form is given, and very little can be changed in the formula. It is a cyclical hypocrisy of the market: seeking revolutionary art, the next style, or historical disruption, yet requiring it to fit within the set, within the classical commercial approach of a traditional gallery. When I say traditional, I do not mean old establishments, but traditional in the sense of maintaining tradition, a conservative and hierarchical gaze that attributes quality to the artist who follows the rules and the reins. This can be a gallery from 2020 just as it can be a gallery from 1980. In this way, there are hundreds of older galleries that have an open approach to innovation. It is evidently, ontologically, impossible to obtain revolution within pre‑established molds and, worse, rigid ones, inflexible in order to maintain a status quo.
The catalogue and the portfolio are derived, one more than the other, from a market‑driven and historical condition in the sense of historical record: portfolio and catalogue are not terms from the art world, but rather borrowings from other industrial fields, the closest and most commonly intertwined with the arts being architecture, fashion, audiovisual production, and interior design. More transitional in nature, there are catalogues in product design and, further removed from art, catalogues for any kind of product: a hardware store for construction tools, as well as catalogues related to technological development, from software and smart solutions to the materiality of that development, such as the automotive and aeronautical industries, and also the pharmaceutical sector, the financial sector per se, and marketing, which can be linked to advertising and services in that field.
Thus, portfolios are, in fact, a category of product presentation and, just like the book of art, they have a structured form for conveying information, which in the case of the portfolio is this set of records — etymologically speaking, portfolio is exactly that, a folder, a case. Choosing to present works in the portfolio format is a choice for market‑oriented purposes, in the same way that a book of art seeks to convey a set of relevant information about a given theme, person, or artistic event.
The problem with the portfolio in art is that it has been established as something indispensable for any artist of any medium, like having a LinkedIn account to get a job. Naturally, artistic production can indeed be presented as a well‑designed list with a good amount of subjectivity in the form of a portfolio; the issue is the totalizing dimension the portfolio has taken on. This pressure imposed by the art market, seeking to standardize artistic creation, can often be softened by institutions and galleries that request an artist statement, which is the place where you can actually present your intention and creative process without the technical and dehydrated format of a portfolio. An artist statement is an incomplete solution, since it also presumes a format, an x number of pages, and, in a way, performs the role of a cover letter for a job interview, with the exception of institutions that make it clear in their calls and open calls that one thing is the portfolio, another is the artist statement, and another is the proposed project. Still, perhaps the remaining space is the artist website, but even the website is often subjected to consultants or representatives of the so‑called high domes of the art world who will demand that you dehydrate the website as well, making it clean, that is, reducing your work to an Instagram‑like feed in a more gourmetized format.
Perhaps the question arises: how not to standardize if these institutions, galleries, and so on receive hundreds or even thousands of applications every year? Well, minimally flexibilizing formats and connections with artists is essential if the intention is to truly understand what is being created today. There is a cost to authenticity, and some restraint is necessary for reasons of pragmatism and analytical fallibility; however, the reptilian constriction inherited from modern art explains, to a great extent, the difficulty both institutions and related agents have in finding artists, and artists have in presenting themselves properly.
The catalogue is something different from the portfolio, because in the arts it began with the intention of historical record and not with a market‑oriented intention. The market‑oriented intention came later or was adapted, but the catalogue itself was essentially archives. Moreover, a peculiar phenomenon occurred with the catalogue format: it became a rather free medium for the presentation of exhibitions in museums and institutions in general. Popularized in the second half of the twentieth century, catalogues were extensions of exhibitions, not only for the public to revisit them, but as an attempt to preserve the artist’s essence as well as to explore exhibition possibilities through the layout between image and text. There are even three‑dimensional catalogues. Thus, catalogues are a category between books of art with influence from art books in the conceptual sense of exploring the possibilities of the formality of reading and of recording an artistic event. It is, in fact, an unstable format in the best sense, whose presentation is volatile and not limited to a single exhibition.
To summarize for artist readers: portfolio and catalogue are not the same thing. There is, certainly, room to innovate within a portfolio, but its caricatured economic weight is almost unavoidable due to the breadth of the term, which ends up being constant across the applied arts today. A portfolio is not a status, and it is not essential for an artist. It is a tool, for a specific purpose. Do not be afraid to make your own book of art, your art book, your catalogue, if you feel that a portfolio is not enough to convey the universe of your creation. If it is worthwhile to make a kind of portfolio for a specific artistic call, then do so, but do not forget that it is only a document, not a condition or an artistic validation. The condition and validation is the presentation of your work, in whatever form, as long as it is intentional and well grounded in your own artistic performance or experience.
Now, for the broader public. I chose not to use the portfolio format anymore because it does not accommodate the textual needs of my work; moreover, since I work in series, the catalogue, which is meant to have some degree of updating and an anchor in the present, becomes the ideal medium for sharing new series with, if necessary, previous references. In 2023, I made a portfolio in the traditional way that is generally expected. In fact, in art school we are already taught how to make a clean portfolio and a clean website. Since then, of course, I have made dozens, if not hundreds, of artistic applications; however, I realized that portfolios for applications are not general portfolios, but rather a specific collection for that proposal or institutional project, which then separates both categories: specified portfolios and presentation portfolios.
Since we need to survive, I believe it is important to have, yes, an updated priced catalogue, but this does not replace a more artistic catalogue, nor should it ever be mixed with the presentation portfolio for those who will still prefer that more solid resource of the portfolio. Keeping it updated does not mean sharing it as a business card. Priced catalogues or any sales history should be among the various documents to be shared only when requested — a tip for beginner artists. I know you want to sell, and believe me, I know well what it is to depend on that, but do not sell yourself for pennies; the art world is not a place where we can afford to be lazy and look for simple solutions, like a one‑size‑fits‑all portfolio. It may even work, but if the idea is to be a shopping‑mall artist or to exist in a world of vanity art, you should not even be reading this text. In any case, the general idea is to balance the needs of your creation, your position as an artist — more discreet commercial spaces or at least separated from the rest — and your presentation, in an authentic way, and yes, it will be experimental for quite some time.
The first one, I consider necessary and, as mentioned above, it is consistent with how many institutions handle data; moreover, curatorships of a small number of works, such as 10 works, invite the artist to reflect on their own work within a space of collaboration with an institution: what does or does not make sense, whether it aligns or does not align with what has already been created. However, the presentation portfolio, as already stated, is for me quite reducible to the rigid aspect of a modern‑art mindset rather than a contemporary one, or of the contemporary that in fact has modern foundations, and it drastically reduces the reality of the artwork. That is how I decided not to have presentation portfolios anymore. It made no sense to create in series only to present fragments with four lines of explanation, or a single paragraph, without relating them to the others, to the references, to the pasts of creation, and so on. When I began studying catalogues from the past century, I realized how they had always been this medium that brings together history and present, with unique layouts similar to an authentic fashion or architecture project — since these are also fields that suffer from the burden of the portfolio as a hegemonic format.
Since this is a recent decision, I am testing formats. There was, evidently, a major change between the 2024 Handbook and the 2025 Mist. In Mist, the format is somewhat more inspired by a book of art in terms of organization. I designed it with an annual structure, with updates from December to December, considering something that is very important in my poetics, which is the relationship with natural cycles: winter solstices occur at the end of December, on the 21st. It seemed like a good first test marker, and observing a year of creation makes some sense when considering the slowness of closing series and how series tend to have distinct visual and conceptual proposals; presenting them in full is necessary for you, the audience, to understand the set of aspects considered and integrated throughout the series. Or, if they are not to be presented in full, that they be presented with at least one‑third of their development, as was the case with two series in the Mist catalogue, a triptych, and Platitudinous Bizarreness.
Finally, I intend to do the same with the next theoretical book, after Lion and the Unicorn and the shorter articles, and release it at each astronomical event, if it makes sense. And yes, the elephant in the room: Mist is actually called Fruity Sadomasoquista, which is a queer and at the same time explicit title for rather calm works. However, the point here is that I truly feel like a fruity sadomasochist creating in this way, increasingly vocal about being against certain conventions. But the fruity side is good, because grounding myself in my queer identity helps me remember that disruption inevitably reaches both the core and the presentation of the self, that is, of my work. It is a pre‑print version, reduced, somewhat more concise, with the main series for those who do not have much time. The final version will be updated in a separate post and on the main page of the website.
Enjoy the reading, and see you in the next relevant studio update.
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