How can one become a successful artist? Where should one start a career in the art world? What are useful strategies to achieve recognition in the art system? Such questions hoard in students' minds ever since entering art school and they probably chase every kind of art professional who is at an early career stage. “The Road to Parnassus” tries to understand what makes a good start in today's art world, who are influential players in the field and which strategies might apply. The swift career ascension of Glasgow artist Douglas Gordon – one of today's leading visual artists – and of the broader YBA generation that rose into worldwide prominence in the 1990s – Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas among the best known – serves as a convenient case to analyse contemporary artist strategies. This book takes a multidisciplinary approach – spanning from traditional art history, to sociology and economics – pursuing the reconstruction of the field of forces in art as intended by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Compared to previous publications on art system dynamics, such as Thompson's “The $12 Million Stuffed Shark”, this book offers an enhanced understanding of the factors that allow a young artist to enter the arena of contemporary art. The present research should help uncover the art system logic – which appears enigmatic to non-experts – revealing that artists are aware they need to consider global trends, beat competitors and meet the demands of dealers, collectors, curators and museums. This book furthers existing contributions on the YBAs (for example Stallabrass' “High Art Lite”), offering innovative conclusions on recent British art, such as on the duality between London and Glasgow, the gender opposition among emerging artists and the predominance of resourceful authors.

How can one become a successful artist? Where should one start a career in the art world? What are useful strategies to achieve recognition in the art system? Such questions hoard in students' minds ever since entering art school and they probably chase every kind of art professional who is at an early career stage. "The Road to Parnassus" tries to understand what makes a good start in today's art world, who are influential players in the field and which strategies might apply. The swift career ascension of Glasgow artist Douglas Gordon - one of today's leading visual artists - and of the broader YBA generation that rose into worldwide prominence in the 1990s - Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas among the best known - serves as a convenient case to analyse contemporary artist strategies. This book takes a multidisciplinary approach - spanning from traditional art history, to sociology and economics - pursuing the reconstruction of the field of forces in art as intended by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Compared to previous publications on art system dynamics, such as Thompson's "The $12 Million Stuffed Shark," this book offers an enhanced understanding of the factors that allow a young artist to enter the arena of contemporary art. The present research should help uncover the art system logic - which appears enigmatic to non-experts - revealing that artists are aware they need to consider global trends, beat competitors and meet the demands of dealers, collectors, curators and museums. This book furthers existing contributions on the YBAs (for example Stallabrass' "High Art Lite"), offering innovative conclusions on recent British art, such as on the duality between London and Glasgow, the gender opposition among emerging artists and the predominance of resourceful authors.

Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene contributes to the growing literature on artistic responses to global climate change and its consequences. Designed to include multiple perspectives, it contains essays by thirteen art historians, art critics, curators, artists and educators, and offers different frameworks for talking about visual representation and the current environmental crisis. The anthology models a range of methodological approaches drawn from different disciplines, and contributes to an understanding of how artists and those writing about art construct narratives around the environment. The book is illustrated with examples of art by nearly thirty different contemporary artists.

In the past century the borders have blurred between art and design. Designers, artists, aestheticians, curators, art and design critics, historians and students all seem confused about these borders. Figurative painting was reduced to graphic design while still being called 'art'. Figurative sculpture was reduced to nonfunctional industrial design while being called 'sculpture'. This fundamental blunder resulted from total misunderstanding of the concept of "abstraction" by the founders of modern art. Comprehensive analysis shows that so-called "abstract art" is neither abstract nor art, but a very simple, even trivial, kind of design. In this book the prehistoric, philosophical, logical, historic and religious sources of the confusion between art and design are analyzed. A new and coherent conceptual framework is proposed, to distinguish between art and design. Nearly one hundred distinctions, contradistinctions and comparisons between art and design are presented, showing clearly that they are totally independent domains. Philosophy of art books are written by philosophers for philosophers, not for artists and designers; therefore they are irrelevant for the latter, especially for students who normally lack the necessary conceptual training. This book is not only for theoreticians but for art and design practitioners at all levels. This is a new kind of book: an illustrated philosophical book for the art and design world, which can make philosophical knowledge accessible and useful for solving real problems for designers and artists who are mostly visual rather than conceptual thinkers. The book contains over two hundred images; thus art and design people can easily follow the arguments and reasoning presented in this book in their own language; images. Lack of distinction between art and design harms both. Design is contaminated by the ills of modern art, while modern art cannot recover from its current stagnation whilst under the illusion that it is actually art rather than design.

Romanticism, the brooding and intensely personal eighteenth-century art and literary movement, takes on a new lease of life in this carefully curated collection of interviews with contemporary artists from around the world. Informed by the writings of the renowned psychoanalyst James Hillman, Romanticism is reconsidered from a twenty-first-century perspective. Moving past a purely formal presentation of the artists’ work, this text strives to uncover the deeper meaning and more pressing issues present in the artworks. All connected by a similar romantic vein, Emma Coccioli explores each artist’s individual practice through a series of carefully selected questions. For Coccioli, discussions of ‘the moral issue’ and the future of the world also form an important part of the interviews. Coccioli acknowledges that artists have often been asked questions about their role in relation to the moral issue and the problem of nihilism. However, even if we have an inherent understanding of the concepts of good and evil, Coccioli argues that there is a need to re-examine the modern-day psyche as it tends to be apathetic and with little emotional resonance on our actions and behaviour. Global overpopulation, climate change, and the planet’s limited resources are also meaningfully discussed in this collection of interviews. In questioning the artists, whose work addresses, even remotely, these topics, Coccioli encourages them to consider what they believe to be the greatest threats to today’s global community and to suggest solutions that might be adopted by future generations. This original and engaging look at contemporary art practice presents a sophisticated discussion of some of the most pressing issues for modern-day society. The interdisciplinary nature of this book means that it will appeal to students, scholars, artists and to anyone with an interest in the fascinating world of contemporary art.

Readins in high & low