CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 9/4/2019

Michael Craig-Martin's 'On Being an Artist' is a Back-to-School Staff Pick

“Untitled (bulb)” (2014) is reproduced from the new paperback edition of On Being an Artist, renowned British conceptual artist and longtime Goldsmiths professor Michael Craig-Martin’s collected writings. A Back-to-School staff favorite, this witty and fast-paced 304-page short essay collection features texts on such topics as passion, ideas and being vulnerable to the world. In the latter, Craig-Martin writes, “There is nothing that happens in an artist’s life—whether good or bad, no matter how dramatically important or apparently trivial—that cannot be turned to effective use in their art. Any crummy part-time job, any minor incident, any childhood memory. Other people can read a book for pleasure or enlightenment. An artist may read a book and it can alter the whole course of their life’s work. Artists are unusually vulnerable to the world in this way. And they, in turn, use their work to seduce others into valuing what they value.”