While I do not agree with everything Kosut proposes, I found the essays in this book unique and original. The topics were interesting and important The artistic perspectives covered, as Kosut suggests, as an ethnographic study were invaluable. The New York arts scene with its ups and downs and the suggestions in the end were the other highlights of this book.

3.5 stars rounded up.

While the threats that this will be a metaphysical philosophy in the blurb were frightening, the opening of the “Author Statement” cheered me up as it addressed perhaps the greatest enemy of New York City artists: the rats in the walls. “How could their lashing bodies, tails, and legs pinned in cheap traps not be a metaphor?” The statement then digresses into the writer’s block the author had as she tried to start writing. Concluding with the note that she has assigned “pseudonyms” to the “artists” that she mentions in this narrative. This is problematic… As any fiction can be attributed to fictitious bylines.
The first chapter “Other Art Worlds” adds that this is not a book that attempts to offer advice on “the realities of living an artist’s life”. It goes on to state the obvious point that I also recently came to understand from a new perspective: “The chances of becoming an artist recognizable beyond the art world is statistically improbable, like trying to live off lotto scratch-offs.” Kosut goes on to point out that “hundreds of thousands” come to New York City annually to “try to become professional artists.” Obviously, most fail. This frank writing style makes me think about my own post-college experience. My longest-lasting roommate at UMass was called Sarah Gosselin. I roomed with her in my freshman year, and she immediately majored in art, despite having a self-reported near-perfect SAT-score. She was bringing in various art-projects that confirmed this was indeed her interest that showed promise in their experimentations. I was extremely jealous of Sarah’s decision. My art was chosen to hang at the Framingham library back in high school, but one of the main things I decided on when I started college was that I could not major in something unprofitable like art, and instead had to focus on something money-aimed such as Economics. I then added Eastern European studies, and Politics as a major and minor. I learned afterwards that “Economics” did not equate to Accounting, which was the actual profitable choice because to become a Finance Bro took having family connections in this industry. Thus, I ended up studying Comparative Literature, and then finally completed an English literature PhD, after realizing that if I did not do something I liked, I was not going to do it. Meanwhile, I have spent 7 years now retired from teaching college in a tiny house, mostly making a living of something that has kept me going since 2010 really: artistic design and formatting of books for my independent Anaphora Literary Press. I was recently invited to do a solo presentation on my re-attribution findings at the American Library Association conference. A new dental implant expense meant that I could not attend ALA, and instead spent this time finishing my study. Unexpectedly, ALA’s organizers got to me to check on why I had not registered, telling me that 29 people had signed up for my session. I did my best to still attend by finding an Anaphora author to sponsor an exhibit table and my trip (light on expenses by sleeping in my car on this 18-hour trip etc.) But during the negotiation, they refused to allow me to purchase an Artist Alley table (which was still available unlike the booked press tables), saying that I am not an “artist”. I had digitally drawn the cover of the sponsoring artist, and I tried to defend my status as a professional artist, but they did not even respond to this point. I am pretty sure that I unintentionally became a professional artist when I first decided to design my own journal, and then agreed to design books for other authors when they began querying me with submissions, without me even posting a call for books, or that I was in fact running a publishing company. Meanwhile, Sarah moved to Cambridge after finishing college (1 ½ years later than me because I finished early in 2 ½ years) to become an artist, and convinced some cafes to hang her art, but so no takers, as she instead began working as a teller in a bank. Some years later, I accidentally was hired by the Cambridge chronicle to write an article about a fair in Cambridge, and I might have told Sarah about it, because she rented a part of a table. I spoke with her, but deliberately avoided mentioning her in the article to avoid any conflict-of-interest. I think that was the last time I spoke with her… When I last checked, I might have seen that somebody of this name who attended UMass might have died a few years ago, after raising a family. I think I am still managing to survive as a professional artist and writer because it’s what I have continued to keep doing non-stop regardless of profits, or their lack. The problem seems to be with the lies we are all told about just what a professional artist or writer must be doing daily to make a living. There are some jobs called “Artist” or “Writer”, but those are entirely different to what art history suggests about the lives of the great “Artists”. Thus, it is a very good idea for Kosut to inject some concrete reality to counter these imaginative narratives.
Kosut goes on to say that “none” of the artists she interviewed “are full-time artists… because they haven’t been formally granted artist status via the market economy or selected to join a gallery roster…” I think I have been a full-time artist without pondering about this for the past 12 years as my press has been my main income-source. I guess this book is not about me… But I don’t recall anybody letting me into a “gallery roster”, though I guess I have been warmly invited into the book “market”. She goes on to explain that she focused on the workshop assistants or artists who assist the creation “of art that bears the signature of someone else.” Then, she absurdly comments that “1 percent… will make it into the annals of art history”… It is far, far fewer than 1%... There might be a few hundred recognizable artist names across most of human history. So the odds of becoming one of these is like 1 in 4 billion.
Chapter “2” is called “Somewhere Else”. Aha! This solves the mystery I have been pondering: I have managed to just be an artist to make a living across the last at least 7 years because I did it “Somewhere Else” than New York, or by cash-purchasing a tiny-house in Texas by using the entirety of my English lecturer salary at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley back in 2016-7. I could use the full sum because my publishing business was enough to pay for all expenses during that year. I would imagine that all New York City artists could similarly make a lot more art that is enjoyable if they lived anywhere else. Though I misunderstood the intended message, as this chapter instead begins with a description of an artist who followed the traditional route and managed to get into collections and museums while living “in a downtown penthouse” in New York City. Kosut comments: “You found out that Eddie, your pretentious studio mate at MICA got picked up by a Lower East Side gallery. Eddie, that hack, got a write-up in the New York Times… In your objective opinion, Eddie’s work was total bullshit.” Then, this hypothetical jealous rival attempts moving to the City hoping to meet with similar luck, ending up: “while working on an art moving truck and picking up side jobs as a freelance art handler. Your left knee keeps swelling up. When you poke it, you recall you have no health insurance. The concluding point is: “Making art in New York City is a victory. All your heroes lived in poverty and obscurity at some point—that’s when they made their greatest work.” In my re-attribution research I learned that canonical British “authors’” biographies are almost entirely fictitious, as small Workshops with only 6-12 people per-century were doing the actual writerly labor, while they were deliberately crediting impoverished bylines to help sell their work as uniquely sympathetic. Most credits to these impoverished bylines were made after these impoverished people (non-writers) were dead and did not take a portion of the royalties. Thus, anybody following these examples is chasing after ghosts.
Chapter “4: Will You Listen to the Problems of a Stranger” presents the curious story of Ray, who attended community college before transferring into a BFA program, and then was inspired by fairytales about Parisian artists and trued moving there: “cellulitis wormed into Ray’s legs” from sleeping on “the streets of Paris” and “washing in fountains” for “a month”, so he ended up in the “emergency room” and then returned to Nashville. After years of labor in a bakery, he finally finished a BFA and then an MFA in Brooklyn. “After art school, Ray didn’t make any money from his art…” The “discovery narrative” is a fiction, he learned, as nobody gets spontaneously discovered by a gallery without connections. One artist who made it without working his way upwards is mentioned, without an explanation regarding just what top collectors saw in him. It is likely there were some corruption in this deal; if this case is extremely rare and no logical explanation is apparent. Though even stories about those who work in an art store or the like until their 50s before they are discovered are unrealistic. I generally have come to believe that all arts have been corrupted, and everything in art and literary biographies is a fiction. Then, some reality is mentioned, as Ray then was accepted into Yale’s MFA program. Artnet has reported that over “a fifty-year period, Yale’s Graduate School of Art pumped out nearly 10 percent of all successful artists in their study.” Yet despite these puffed odds, “Ray couldn’t find a dealer, and his work never hung in a gallery”. Art school thus seems to be a scam. The way folks did it before was that an artist would apprentice with an artist for room-and-board, or by paying a small fee, and after working on art in this workshop for around 7 years between 14 and 21, one would either take over as the lead-artist of their own workshop, or would move on to doing some adjacent job in the arts or crafts that was profitable, such as becoming a goldsmith, or a printer, or a wall-painter. All these jobs were valuable alike, as fictional artist biographies had not been part of the academic curriculum. Ray instead worked in an art-supply store for years before he finally moved back to Kentucky to live with his family. The chapter ends with Ray’s one success of selling a sculpture of a telephone. What kind of sculptures was this guy doing all those years if his opus was a telephone covered in clay or the like? Did he seriously deserve to be accepted into Yale’s top program? If so, just why do their graduates make up 10% of top artists…? Much to ponder.
It is a great book that makes me digress and ponder. I wish this book was more organized, and focused on reporting chronological facts. And I wish real names were used, so I could research these careers to figure out what is untold between these lines. But as it stands this is a solid attempt to describe the art profession as it is. Thus, all artists who are in this rat-race should read this book to avoid the pitfalls it details.
--Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Summer 2024 issue

"I will say that art is a human condition - illogical and gorgeous"

I you consider yourself to exist in the creative sphere, no matter what that role may be (curator, hobbyist, painter, art handler or a general 'creative' etc) I urge you to read this beautiful examination of Art.

I once had a university lecturer tell me that post modernist art was the era of 'reference' that nothing could be new anymore, everything was merely a reproduction. I had many issues with this statement at the time, one of them being my enquiry of 'well what happens next?'. He couldn't answer, I felt he was wrong. This book drew this memory out of me and also answered it in some strange form. Perhaps it is not an era of reference, but one of saturation, and the direction of art will be defined by this struggle of competition in a self proclaimed 'community'.

Ive never been to New York, I am firmly a London girlie for life, but the stories of its history and beating heart of and against art, still resonated and brought to life things I hadn't previously considered. Sometimes it reads a bit clunky, and tangential, but still I loved it entirely.

I'm not sure what I expected from this book, but I really enjoyed what I got. Some first-person reflections on working as an artist and curator in New York City, especially how the day-to-day existence differs from the Instagram fantasy version. Some urban history of bohemian life then ("I remember you well/in the Chelsea Hotel ") vs. now. Some interviews. Some manifesto language, some revision and reflection, overall very satisfying.

Thanks to NetGalley and Columbia University Press for the ARC!

There’s something patently absurd about Marin Kosut’s "Art Monster," but that is perhaps the book’s greatest strength.

Let’s get it out of the way—art is kind of ridiculous, particularly the highly performative variety Marin Kosut describes in this book. It’s often incomprehensible and estranging, but it’s also completely necessary.

The same could be said for "Art Monster," a book ostensibly about art and New York but really about much more and also nothing in particular.

It’s a glorious mess.

The book wrestles with the commercialization of artistic practice—the need to turn everything into a “hustle” as a “creative.” Refreshingly (and annoyingly), Kosut scoffs at the mentality that everyone is an artist. Her exclusionary attitude is grating, but it feels like a definitional necessity. We can’t talk about what we can’t name. That said, for a book that positions itself as a critique of capitalism’s influence on art, she’s arguably too preoccupied with production and the social capital of the artist’s role. While she would—and does—claim the opposite, much of the book feels like an attempt to have it both ways.

For a book about New York, it’s also odd how poorly the city seems to fit in here. Each chapter feels tangential, even when the author attempts substantial topics. Kosut writes about gentrification pushing people out, and she frames it as a crisis because artists aren’t be able to create in the same way once they leave—they need the city. But do they? Isn’t art a response to the conditions surrounding it? Again, Kosut slips into a focus on production—art isn’t lost, but a certain kind of output and lifestyle might be. It’s a self-serving eulogy. Normally I’m skeptical of critiques that an author is too privileged to broach certain subjects, but that feels like the case here. So much of the book feels disingenuous as Kosut mourns barriers to outsider art with the liminal privilege of an insider. She has a great deal of social—and literal—mobility due to her academic status, and while I think the systemic issues she addresses are certainly problems, we never see them as such—they appear only as problems to her. It gets extra sticky when she explicitly identifies artists as a minoritized class alongside the “working class and the undocumented.” Yikes.

"Art Monster" is also odd in that it reads like the excessive ramblings of a corkboard conspiracy theorist, with fraying threads barely connecting all of the ideas. Each chapter has a topic, but it is often disposed of quickly and violently to entertain Kosut’s other thoughts. It frequently doesn’t work. This is a semi-academic text with the constant, button-pushing digressions of a provocateur—what if COVID was political? Maybe we shouldn’t trust doctors. It gets to a point where it’s actually difficult to tell what she’s saying, and I write that as someone who reads academic texts for fun.

This lack of focus is further compounded by recurrent, explicit rebuttals to early reviewers who found her arguments untenable. Rather than clarify her points, she resorts to little more than, “well, they’re wrong.” I’m not sure how a book can hold together when its chief advocates—friends and early readers–are viewed as antagonistic.

And yet, despite all these critiques, I found myself really energized by parts of "Art Monster." Marin Kosut has an irresistible conviction about the importance of art, particularly with how it interacts with different kinds of capital. The implications of that conviction are often quite muddled—as noted, this book makes almost no sense—but I still found myself drawn into its orbit. The author’s discussions on artistic practice are exciting, tapping into the incongruity between the need to create and public disinterest. There are moments when the free-wheeling anecdotes transform into something meaningful amidst the chaos.

In the end, like all art, "Art Monster" invites and resists a single simple question: What does it mean?

Maybe nothing. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe we can’t know.

I think readers’ enjoyment will hinge entirely on whether they need an answer to the question.

Art Monster - On the Impossibility of New York by Marin Kosut is a fascinating, vivid insight into the highly competitive art world and those who dedicate their life to their art, often consigned to working on the margins of the industry and rarely achieving a foothold to get themselves seen.

Centred around the New York art scene Kosut examines how creativitiy is being pushed aside for a more professional approach to the creation of art and reflects on how this detracts from the core tenet of art itself, expression and creativity without restraint.

Beautifully written, empathetic, passionate and highly knowledgable, Art Monster is a fascinating work and a valuable insight for all students (and lovers) of art and indeed, fringe art awy from the heavily advertised art we are told we should like, instead of seeking the art that we honestly enjoy

Brilliant

Thank you to Netgalley, Columbia University Press and the author Marin Kosut for this fascinating ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

Thank you to NetGalley, Columbia University Press, and most of all, Marin Kosut.

Kosut’s ‘Art Monster’ is golden syrup for the brain. With a poetic prowess that rivals many contemporary writers, the author disperses seeds of wonder. From Valerie Solanas to pay phone art, Kosut somehow manages to plug her brain into the readers.

If you read just one non-fiction book this year, make it this one. I have visited New York three times in my life, and ‘Art Monster’ adeptly portrays the saccharine romantics of the narratives that surround it. At one point, Kosut discusses the class differences in New York, and how the language of wealth can be often limiting.

The chapter I enjoyed the most was the one on The Chelsea Hotel. That hotel is a kind of mythical creature for an artist, and Marin Kosut details this just as well, often interspersing references that pique the readers interest.

‘Art Monster’ is an absolute feat of poetic memoir meets cultural criticism. The author is removed from the book just enough to ensure that it is does not become an autobiography. Marin Kosut is a phenomenal writer and I am eager to read more of their work.