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ATLANTA CONTEMPORARY ART CENTER
The Art Life: On Creativity and Career
Edited by Stuart Horodner, Stacie Lindner. Introduction and foreword by Stuart Horodner.
The Art Life: On Creativity and Career is a collection of solicited and selected texts that address the philosophical and practical issues that affect art-making and the marketplace. It brings together visual artists, curators, dealers, writers, musicians, architects, actors, and educators, who speak to their internal motivations, influences and processes, and to their external engagements with community, audience, career and success. Many of the contributors have taken part in exhibitions and public programs at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center from 2007 to the present, and others have been included to represent provocative historical and contemporary viewpoints by a range of influential figures. The texts are taken from lectures, interviews, published statements, websites and email exchanges, and are joined by images of artists in the midst of creating or installing, as well as completed art works. The analytic and inspirational entries address the fact that a life in the arts can be simultaneously rewarding, frustrating, doubt-filled, joyful and uncertain. And yet, thousands of artists persist every day, motivated by a private insistency and the promise of satisfaction and recognition. Each is attempting to combine their creative life with a thriving career, and this publication provides various “words of wisdom” which can serve to inspire, challenge and reassure them. As painter Franz Kline said, “The real thing about creating is to have the capacity to be embarrassed.” The composite nature of The Art Life is meant to posit that each creative individual must find the necessary information and materials to best establish their unique voice. The book is as much found as written, a heady mix of opinions and questions that can be used in classrooms and studios by artists of all ages.
Featured image, Gillian Wearing's "Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say: Everything is
connected in life. The point is to know it and to understand it." (1992–93) is reproduced from The Art Life: On Creativity and Career.
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Art In America
Stephanie Cash
What compels a person to become an artist, actor or singer, and to make the financial and comfort sacrifices that so often precede success, or accompany failure? A new book offers myriad, unscientific answers. The Art Life: On Creativity and Career is "as much curated as written," says author Stuart Horodner, artistic director of the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center…. Inspirations, muses, personal motivators and observations are provided by such figures as film directors Woody Allen and Werner Herzog, writers Wayne Koestenbaum and Orhan Pamuk, singers Johnny Cash and Lady Gaga, and artists Vito Acconci, Francis Bacon, Dana Schutz and Leon Golub, who notes: "There are three things: your work, your livelihood, and your personal life. If any two are going well at the same time consider yourself lucky."
STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely.
FROM THE BOOK
"You have to start somewhere. I choose to begin with painter Thomas Nozkowski quoting writer Edward Dahlberg, who said, 'It is presumptuous to assume we can do anything to help another person and it is vulgar not to try.'
This statement is meant to assert two things right off the bat. First, that the goal of this collection of selected and solicited texts and images, is to be of assistance. The various opinions revealed within these pages might serve as a compass for orienting yourself as you deal with the practical and philosophical matters that shape every art life. Second, that artists have always relied on their predecessors and peers for inspiration and confirmation, quoting them in casual or formal situations in order to prove points about one topic or another. Using what others have said makes history an active part of the present and affirms the user's position as part of the continuum." —Stuart Horodner, excerpted from the Introduction to The Art Life: On Creativity and Career.
FORMAT: Pbk, 6 x 9 in. / 183 pgs / 30 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $25.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $34.5 GBP £22.00 ISBN: 9781450790659 PUBLISHER: Atlanta Contemporary Art Center AVAILABLE: 3/31/2012 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Out of stock indefinitely AVAILABILITY: Not available TERRITORY: WORLD
Published by Atlanta Contemporary Art Center. Edited by Stuart Horodner, Stacie Lindner. Introduction and foreword by Stuart Horodner.
The Art Life: On Creativity and Career is a collection of solicited and selected texts that address the philosophical and practical issues that affect art-making and the marketplace. It brings together visual artists, curators, dealers, writers, musicians, architects, actors, and educators, who speak to their internal motivations, influences and processes, and to their external engagements with community, audience, career and success. Many of the contributors have taken part in exhibitions and public programs at the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center from 2007 to the present, and others have been included to represent provocative historical and contemporary viewpoints by a range of influential figures. The texts are taken from lectures, interviews, published statements, websites and email exchanges, and are joined by images of artists in the midst of creating or installing, as well as completed art works. The analytic and inspirational entries address the fact that a life in the arts can be simultaneously rewarding, frustrating, doubt-filled, joyful and uncertain. And yet, thousands of artists persist every day, motivated by a private insistency and the promise of satisfaction and recognition. Each is attempting to combine their creative life with a thriving career, and this publication provides various “words of wisdom” which can serve to inspire, challenge and reassure them. As painter Franz Kline said, “The real thing about creating is to have the capacity to be embarrassed.” The composite nature of The Art Life is meant to posit that each creative individual must find the necessary information and materials to best establish their unique voice. The book is as much found as written, a heady mix of opinions and questions that can be used in classrooms and studios by artists of all ages.
