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Inside the heart of art. Being an artist is not a neat occupation. There’s no job description, no wage and very little certainty about the future. It’s messy and gritty as it’s always concerned with being human.To look at what being an artist really involves, Private Lives: Artists Working Today collects essays, interviews and images by some of today’s most interesting British artists. There are widely differing personal accounts of the sorrow of selling work, the difficulties of fame and fashionability, of self-doubt battling self–belief and of family disappointment (Cornelia Parker’s mother was still saving her job ads as her Turner Prize show went up). But through brutally honest and often entertaining offerings from the likes of Martin Parr, Catherine Yass, Nitin Sawhney and David Toop, some universal concerns are unearthed. Ideas that rebellion and freedom are found in the truth that creativity offers surface again and again. The need to make things, but also the lingering question of what function these things then have in the world. But most of all, there’s the sense that creativity is simply a more articulate language than words for these eloquent artists. Perhaps Andy Goldsworthy’s affecting description of making sculptures from tears as his father lay dying describes most potently the strength and emotional truths spoken of here. Private Views: Artists Working Today edited by Judith Palmer out on 01 September 04, published by Serpent’s Tail.
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related info
 useful linkswww.martinparr.com frith st gallery: cornelia parker british council: catherine yass www.davidtoop.com www.nitinsawhney.com haines gallery: andy goldsworthy
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see also
 david toophaunted weather  turner prize20 years  nitin sawhneyhuman  iain sinclairinterview contributor page turner prize 02
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on bbc news on bbc.co.uk/arts on bbc.co.uk/music art  art archive Watch artist interviews and see images from British exhibitions. |
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