Poor Artists

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 * Excoriating and energising . . . interweaves impassioned real-world critique with an exuberant narrative that’s by turns satirical and surreal * Telegraph * Reads like a page-turning novel... What I love about this book is that it doesn’t descend into cynicism and despair, instead balancing the more challenging aspects of living a creative life (including, but not limited to, crippling student debt, predatory gallerists and dealing with rejection) with a full-throated defence of the inherent value of making, experiencing and talking about art -- Chloe Stead * FRIEZE * An aspiring young artist’s journey makes for a critique of the art world, in novel form . . . as it gathered pace, I could feel the strength and hopefulness of the authors’ narrative . . . The book is, at its heart, trying to get at the slippery, eternal problem of what art is -- Eliza Goodpasture * Guardian * Through striking bathos and playful prose, Poor Artists takes us through the doors of a surreal and sometimes nauseating art world governed by myth, mysticism and strange rituals.. And yet, Poor Artists is not about simple nostalgia or authenticity. It is a story about power and alienation, success and compromise, creative survival and self-preservation -- Alexandra Diamond-Rivlin * AnOther Mag * A manifesto for hungry young artists * The Big Ship * A patchwork of myth... Fact and fiction blur, genres bend...If Poor Artists is poison for institutions, it is a tonic for the people. It’s for art students at orientation and computer programmers who can still remember the painting in their grandmother’s bedroom. It’s for job-seekers who wish they could sleep under their old Buffy posters instead of in front of their laptop * Skinny Mag * The art world memoirs for our Internet generation that none of us knew we needed but now we can’t live without. An indispensable read giving insights on an ‘art world’ at the edge of collapse. Living for it -- Legacy Russell, author of <i>Glitch Feminism </i> 'I was surprised, challenged and affirmed - everything I love in a book . . . There are a lot of superlatives I could throw at Poor Artists, yet I finished the book overwhelmingly grateful that it exists. The White Pube continue to be a duo that add such a refreshing, thoughtful and critical but fun voice to an often stale art world. Poor Artists is that in tenfold -- Travis Alabanza, author of <i>None of the Above</i> This book might change the way you look at art, or change the way you feel it . . . I love the energy, deep humour and alive thought in Poor Artists, which zooms through galleries, universities, a hospital ward, and a spaceship, capturing what is tragic, and what’s glorious, about art and the world right now -- Daisy Hildyard author of <i>Emergency </i> Gabrielle de la Puente and Zarina Muhammad have crept in through the back door of the artworld and left it open for the rest of us. This is a landmark for art writing — a treatise on the difference between art’s right to mystify and confound, and the crimes of an industry that discriminates and excludes -- Nathalie Olah, author of <i>Bad Taste </i>