Poor Artists
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Summary
Brought to you by Penguin.
'Let me stay there, let me paint. Let me go to bed when the sun comes up. I don't want life to sharpen me.'
Why make art? Faced with a capitalist system that has turned art into artwork and creative expression into cut-throat competition, why do so many artists try anyway?
In this eye-opening journey through the bizarre world of contemporary art, criticism duo The White Pube tell the story of art like never before. Poor Artists follows aspiring artist Quest Talukdar through childhood obsessions, art school lessons and her professional debut. In surreal encounters with other artists, Quest learns profound truths about money and power, and must decide whether she cares more about success or staying true to herself.
Blending imaginative storytelling with dialogue from anonymized interviews with real people in the art world who have all had to wrestle with the same decisions – including a Turner Prize winner or two, a few ghosts, a Venice Biennale fraudster and a communist messiah – Poor Artists is a powerful testimony to the emotional, existential and financial experience of artists today.
'A landmark for art writing' Nathalie Olah
© Gabrielle de la Puente, Zarina Muhammad and The White Pube 2024 (P) Penguin Audio 2024
'Let me stay there, let me paint. Let me go to bed when the sun comes up. I don't want life to sharpen me.'
Why make art? Faced with a capitalist system that has turned art into artwork and creative expression into cut-throat competition, why do so many artists try anyway?
In this eye-opening journey through the bizarre world of contemporary art, criticism duo The White Pube tell the story of art like never before. Poor Artists follows aspiring artist Quest Talukdar through childhood obsessions, art school lessons and her professional debut. In surreal encounters with other artists, Quest learns profound truths about money and power, and must decide whether she cares more about success or staying true to herself.
Blending imaginative storytelling with dialogue from anonymized interviews with real people in the art world who have all had to wrestle with the same decisions – including a Turner Prize winner or two, a few ghosts, a Venice Biennale fraudster and a communist messiah – Poor Artists is a powerful testimony to the emotional, existential and financial experience of artists today.
'A landmark for art writing' Nathalie Olah
© Gabrielle de la Puente, Zarina Muhammad and The White Pube 2024 (P) Penguin Audio 2024
Reviews
Irreverent, provocative and funny . . . at some points it reads like a memoir and at others like a wildly surrealist novel . . . I found it fascinating as someone who knows basically nothing about the art world, but I’d also highly recommend it to anyone who went to art school or works as an artist – I’m sure the experiences it depicts would resonate deeply
Dazed