Why Be an Artist?

What are the pros and cons of being an artist in London today? Following an illustrious recent history - the YBAs, Tate Modern, Frieze and Zoo art fairs - London refuses to be unseated as a top international art centre. With so many art schools and galleries to choose from, artists here are spoiled for choice - why would anyone not want to be an artist in such boom time? But with popularity comes competition: how do you stand out in the crowd? Is there any room left for dossing around at art school, making mistakes? And why choose pricey London when you could move to a cheaper city like Berlin?

Speakers: Gavin Turk, artist; Nicholas Logsdail, Lisson Gallery; Soraya Rodriguez, director of Zoo Art Fair and founder of The Great Unsigned; Sacha Craddock, chair of New Contemporaries and curator, Bloomberg Space and Sadler’s Wells; Susan Finlay, RCA 2004 graduate and author of Arriviste, a novel about being an artist in London. Chair: Ossian Ward, editor of The Artists’ Yearbook 2008/9, and visual arts editor at Time Out.

Why Be an Artist? is programmed in association with Thames & Hudson, publishers of The Artists' Yearbook 2008/9, out this month.