Art MonsterArt Monster

"Being a working artist is a romantic idea - actually pursuing art as an occupation is absurd. Why do people choose the the life of an artist and how do they accomplish it? What is it about the romanticism of New York that makes it a magnet for artistic dreamers? In Art Monster, Marin Kosut guides the reader into the lives, minds, and emotions - including her own - of artists who live and work on the margins of New York's art world. Through an honest and personal prose style, she explores the irrational drive to make art in the hopes of someday becoming professional artists who can quit their day jobs. This work of creative non-fiction considers the economic changes in New York art making and what it means to think of oneself as an artist. The people that populate this book - people who Kosut became close to after years of engagement - an artist's life no matter what that entails is better than a normal life without art - but it is a life of romanticized struggle that Kosut herself wrestles to come to terms with"--