Abstract

This article argues that being an artist is not a job, even for artists who make a good living from their art. Picasso taught us that children are artists, but this is not their job. Adult artists continue to play, rather than work. Artists are like gamblers who are either free to play, because they are independently wealthy, or compulsive: they gamble even when this leads them to financial ruin. Playing the lottery is not a job, even though some people make a lot of money from doing so. Artists play their own kind of lottery. Only 5% earn a living from their art. The remaining 95% become consumers of the capitalist art machine - supporting the lucky 5% who do make a living from their art. Artists who believe that they are doing a job do so in the hope that one day they will join the 5%. Jumping from one gentrification project to the next or throwing the dice at the state-funded residency carousel keeps the dream alive.

The article uses Bertrand Russell's thoughts to outline the dangers of recuperation whenever artists are funded (by the state or private sector). It argues that once the artist's practice becomes a job, it ceases to be art. Boris Groys' notions of Design Aestheticisation and Art Aestheticisation are used to support this thesis. The article concludes that the reason why many people think that being an artist is a job is linked to the same neoliberal logic that allows us to think that being a parent is a job. It is not. Parents do not clock off a 5pm: they are parents twenty-four hours a day. Parents do not retire. Being a parent, or being an artist, might be the hardest thing you do, but is its not a job. Jobs are important, but they are not the only things to give meaning to life and contribute towards a better society.