10 Steps to Becoming an A-List Artist!

So, you want to grow up to be a real, bona-fide, celebrated artist? Want to shirk that whole "starving artist" trope and make it big? Want to be that kind of celebrity artist who's just so damn cool you can unscrew a urinal from a public restroom, screw it onto a museum wall and declare it "Art?" Well, cheers to that. Here are the 10 steps you need to make it.    

1. Don’t get an MFA. Everyone’s telling you to go to art school, right? Your professor, your parents, the skeptical lady in the apartment upstairs with the seven cats and mole on the left side of her face that you're pretty sure is drawn on. Don’t listen to any of them, especially the cat lady. Being an artist nowadays entails doing anything and everything against the norm. If you’re thinking about becoming a painter, you should probably never pick up a canvas or a paintbrush or even paint. That’s so 19^th century. Post-post-post-mod painting now requires altogether different materials, materials that probably haven’t even been invented yet. If you want to become a celebro-artist, you better forget about art school and all their curricula. You need to start outside the art-industrial complex if you want to be taken seriously. Plus, art school is like totally a 3 year investment. You’ll grow old after all that time locked up in school. A youthful appearance (which you will lose holed up in school) is an artist’s best friend.

2. Read books. Reading books is the only way you will be able to gain the knowledge necessary to build your brand as a non-conforming, anti-institutional, post-aesthetic artist. Look, everything nowadays is about conceptual art and reading books is the only way to get big, academic concepts into your head. Semiotics, structural dualism, simulacra? If you believe these words belong to a foreign language, you should run to your local library, get a library card and check out every book in the Art and Theory (or a comparable) section. If your library doesn’t have said section, you should probably never return to that library. In fact, move out of that neighborhood altogether.

3. Wear deodorant. Don’t believe the hype, hygiene is crucial in this business.

4. Hang out with rich people. Since art became known as “art,” money has been involved. Popes, monarchs, noblemen, pirates – they all paid lump sums for the finest works of art. The trend continues today. Even rich people who couldn’t tell you the definition a primary color are jumping in to the art market with checks (and Swiss bank accounts) in hand. These aren’t the normal rich people you think about when you think about rich people. These aren’t doctors and lawyers. I’m talking about family money here, generational wealth, the kind of people who charter their own jets. Where can you find these ballers? A few suggestions: ski lodges, auction houses, sky scrapers, cabins in the woods, unnamed islands, and Walmart (yes, Walmart – how do you think they keep their wealth?).  

5. Wear (Fake) Glasses. Being cool is important, especially if you want the rich people to like you. Being cool is all about your habitus – the way you talk, walk, and pontificate about cultural matters. But more than anything, being cool is about the way you dress. It’s the first thing anyone notices about you and it can really make up for deficits in other areas. So, wear the skinny jeans (even especially if you’re a guy) and rock that Burberry scarf atop a v-neck t-shirt in the middle of July. And don’t forget to purchase a pair of glasses, preferably with round rims. It doesn’t matter if you have 20/10 vision, you can pop the lenses out of those $500 frames. Remember people, this is all an investment in your future stardom.

6. Purchase a domain name. This is also an investment. No one becomes famous nowadays without a website, a Twitter handle, or a blog. Have all three? Tripling your chances of fame. You must purchase a domain name and put up a site that’s all about you and your art. Make sure to post images of your work, but whatever you do, make it really, really, really difficult to make any sense of it. Never explain your work in words, never provide links to former exhibitions. And above all, if you must include a bio, NEVER refer to yourself in the third person. Remember, we’re going for “cool” here, not "self-absorbed." The self-absorbed part can come out later when, you know, you’re being exhibited at the Venice Biennale and you can claim in your class bulletin that 10 years after graduation you have finally made it.

7. If you can’t afford a domain name, at least get a Tumblr. I mean, it’s free and can be tinkered to function like any other site. Plus, re-blogs gain you exposure among the emo, depressed, fame-seeking, I-want-to-be-noticed, 20-something crowd (You!).

8. Change your name. Look, signing your work “John Smith” will never get your work sold. Go for foreign, like Lana Del Rey. Or, go off a childhood nickname. The best rappers in the game have done that. Anagrams are cool too and make you look really learned. If you name yourself after a country, just make sure it’s not Communist or anything … unless you’re going for that Marxist critique of bourgeois culture. If so, then you MUST make sure to include a Communist country or two in your name; oh, and make sure to hide all of your money when you make it big (no big houses, fancy cars, rooftop ragers). It’s more than a little embarrassing to rage against bourgeois culture while blatantly benefitting from it.

9. Be a manual laborer. I know, this one is painful, but it must be done. Every real artist nowadays has a factory of workers, a la Andy Warhol. Damien Hirst has a few. Takashi Murakami has one or two. Sure you’ll feel like a tool. And you will be correct is this assumption. You are, in fact, a tool. A human tool/ laborer working hard on another person’s creative endeavor – a person who, most likely, will claim an inordinate amount of credit for the final product. But, don’t you worry; if you keep at it, one day you will rise up, rage against the boss and start your own factory teeming with little artistic workers.

10. Above all else, don’t call yourself an artist. Ever. Here are other options: conceptual producer, architect, canvas slayer, creative director, academic, cultural connoisseur, bohemian, the misunderstood, socialist, the 99%, non-traditional student, Starbucks barista.

Good luck my friend!

Signed,

Truth to Power