Great Expectations

The most basic ecology of the contemporary art scene would place the uber Contemporary Art Museum at the top of the food chain, with dealers, collectors, art fairs and biennales scrapping it out for second. Next up would be the galleries, art prizes, art magazines, journalists, funding bodies and the spaces the support jostling for position in mid table safety. From time to time, one leaps up and manages to bite the other, but you can guarantee that at the bottom of this food chain will be the artist. However, obviously some artists do achieve 'success', but on whose terms? Dialogue Editorial Advisor, Gordon Dalton spoke to a number of artists to discuss their own exposure, economics and expectations of the art world.

BedwyrWilliams 'Grim Reaper Performance Roadshow, Dundee', 2003

Tim Davies 'Rag Field' (detail), 2005

Mark Gubb 'In My World', 2005

Boo Ritson 'Mini', 2005

Ruth Claxton 'I thought I was the audience and then I looked at you (green eyes)', 2005

Danny Rolph 'Elsewhere', 2002-2005

Gordon Dalton: Could we begin by just giving the briefest of introductions of who you are and what you do?

Ruth Claxton: I am an artist based in Birmingham. I mostly make sculpture and installation. In all my work I tend to reconfigure or alter existing objects.

Tim Davies: My work cuts across a variety of media, including 2D work, installation and video.

Boo Ritson: This summer I finished my MA at the RCA (Sculpture) and I'm now based in a studio on the west side of London.

Danny Rolph: I am a painter.

Mark Gubb: I'm an artist based in Nottingham. I would also include writing, lecturing and organising projects as being part of my practice.

Bedwyr Williams: My work incorporates stand-up comedy, performance, video, writing, photography and drawing.

GD: Could you give me a recent example of what you consider to be a 'success' in your practice?

RC: People have started to come to me and I don't have to make my own opportunities in the same way as I did a year ago. One of the biggest successes is when people have come to the studio and decide to show what I am working on now rather than the pieces that have been already validated by another curator.

TD: A mixed sense of success was being short-listed for the first Artes Mundi prize last year, also a solo show last year at Leicester City Gallery, which I felt good about.

BR: I'm represented by David Risley Gallery, which is a very recent development.

DR: I've had 2 solo shows this year in very different contexts...including my first solo show abroad.

MG: I was recently awarded an Arts Council fellowship to Krakow in Poland.

BW: I received a Paul Hamlyn award last year that felt like a success.

GD: How is this 'success' perceived by your contemporaries, peers, and what effect has ithad on your career?

TD: Being short-listed for Artes Mundi hasn't had much of an effect. There have been a few instances where my work was taken more seriously by curators within Wales, who need external validation to accept what is on their doorstep.

RC: There is the regional peer group where people seem to be happy for me, it draws some attention to the region so is good for everyone else. I have also recently gained another peer group of people I have been put in shows with and that becomes this different network, where you are coming into contact with artists who are working at the same kind of level - I imagine it's like being on the golf or tennis circuit. It also means I seem to have less time to actually make stuff though, as I am forever packing things up and dealing with emails and stuff which can be a bit annoying.

BR: Having a gallerist working with you to create new opportunities seems to me to be a good thing!

DR: I don't know how other artists perceive success, but for me it is relative.

MG: In the short term, it has had the effect of funding two months worth of my activity.

BW: I didn't use to see my peers so often but since I got the award I'm getting out of North Wales a bit more and I see them more. In terms of careering it just seems like I have more time.

GD: How does this balance with your own views on personal success as an artist, and what pressures that may have arisen from this?

RC: I am very wary of getting stuck doing what people expect me to do. For me, personal success as an artist is always fundamentally about making the work I want to make and it being good (for me), that's where the real success will always lie. Now that my work has been kind of validated by people I do dare sometimes call myself an artist.

TD: Prizes are nice when they happen, a kind of acknowledgement, a sort of confidence boost which we often need, but I don't think a prize necessarily denotes quality, so there's no real room for complacency.

BR: If personally perceived success in the studio were not followed by agreement from outside, it might set up pressures to consider which valuation was more important. I guess you just have to resist that.

DR: Personal success is when a painting, collage or drawing I'm working on is 100% true to my expression and ready to leave the studio.

MG: The young, aspiring, art student that lingers in me would see the height of success as being paid to go to a foreign country and make art. Anything that involves getting on a plane is immediately more exciting than catching the bus - isn't it? A residency also carries a self imposed pressure that makes me feel that my work should be better than it is, and that I'll end up disappointing the people who have funded me to do it.

GD: Do you think it has had any adverse effects on the things that you make, does it feel at all prescribed in some fashion?

RC: I have always had a thing about not liking it when things become static and so I am trying to resolve that in my head now.

TD: Besides the occupational hazard of the 'coming down' post exhibitions/prizes etc, I try to forget about it as soon as possible and move onto the next project.

MG: I usually end up questioning whether I want to be an artist any more, when the self imposed pressure to pluck a work out of thin air is at its strongest. Then I remember that I'm actually all right (at times) at this art business.

GD: Taking a wider view, how do you see the rise of 'biennale culture' having an effect, especially on artists just leaving art school?

RC: I am not sure whether artists leave art school or whether art students do.

TD: It may suggest to art school leavers that there are more opportunities out there. It may give some a goal, a kind of structure, but because it's a moving feast, run by people who are also on the move, having their own career paths. I wouldn't personally wish to pin my hopes on something that may be shallow.

BR: I not aware that it has had any effect on me, except that there are more shows to see!

DR: Generally they are boring ego trips for the dreaded 'uber-curators' and normally a mess.

GD: Whilst artists are still reckoned to have a hard life, there are literally hundreds of opportunities, albeit in a competitive market. What's so wrong with a bit of competition? Shouldn't it make you up your game?

RC: The more competition the better. There are too many [bad] artists and too many [bad] administrators and too many [bad] commissioners and too many [bad] curators and generally too many people with no vision and worse than that no ambition either. Raise the bar it makes it more exciting. It is too easy to be big fish in a small pond and it soon gets dull.

TD: I haven't really got a problem with competition, but I am concerned about those chosen to judge and what agendas or bias they may have.

BR: Competition is fine if you want it, and you don't have to take part if you don't want to.

MG: The world is full of whining artists, who deep down, are very happy to be just that and have no real idea of what is involved in being an artist. I also think that most art schools are to blame for not giving their students the tools necessary to enter the game at a level where they're not going to get knocked out in the first round. We all know that 50% of being an artist is administration and that idea needs to be engaged with, not ignored, otherwise you're only producing half an artist.

BW: I live in North Wales it's cheaper than London my money goes further and I have more space. Upping my game makes me sound like a tennis player.

GD: What are your honest expectations when making art and about your career and in the future?

RC: I imagine that when I have a kid my career will be [stuffed] and that makes me kind of sad. In my dream world I would like not to do teaching to support making art, as now it is getting in the way. I'd like to get a gallery as I think that wouldtake some admin type work away from me.

TD: Personally I find every piece I do a real struggle always have done and suspect I always will. It would be nice one day to stop worrying about work but I don't think it's going to happen.

BR: I want to make work that I like, and it's my most consistent hope for the future.

MG: My honest expectation is that I will carry on making art and being creative. Whether people will want to continue funding me to do this, or showing it is another matter altogether.

BW: On Sunday nights I terrify myself thinking about the future.

GD: I mention honesty, because it seems a dirty word, no one is really prepared to tell you what they think for fear of reprisal or losing their hard fought rung on the ladder. How honest are you?

RC: I think worrying about where you are on the ladder is probably a waste of time. If I can carry on being asked to do things I am interested in then that's good enough for me. I don't want to be a superstar, I am not interested.

TD: I'm too honest, in fact it's cost me many shows and possible career moves when I've spoken my mind about the idiots that work within the art world -and there are many. These tend not to be the artists but the careerists who make a living on the back of those making the art in the first place. My only criticism of certain fellow artists is that many seem to lack a political will or backbone and will say anything to stay on their rung or move up the ladder. I'm bored of artists carefully contriving their responses, even to a questionnaire like this, so that neutrality, as always, pervades via the one-liner.

MG: If I don't like someone or their work, I don't necessarily tell them what I think, but I also don't make a point of telling other people.

GD: Is it still possible to position yourself outside of the art world's power structure and make an impact?

RC: The 1980s youth, CND, animal rights activist in me still wants to believe there is an opposition, but I don't think its really true.

TD: Only if you're very rich and have a private income.

MG: The closest might be the KLF, but I think they failed in their quest. Bill Drummond spent years slagging off the system that he now exists entirely within. You might say this is an achievement in itself. By default, to make an impact in any given sphere, that sphere has to engage with you, and by being engaged with, you are, immediately no longer on the outside of that sphere or power structure.

GD: Where do you see yourself within this infrastructure, what strategies do you use to make the most of the situation?

RC: I am in a parallel infrastructure of the 'regions' and the 'artist led' at the moment, though maybe I have just started to move across to the 'institution' and perhaps soon to the 'commercial'.

TD: I don't have a conscious strategy other than mostly accepting invitations when they come along, and hoping that someone somewhere will see the work and offer something somewhere else. I'm not a natural networker.

BR: I produce as much work as I can, try to push it forward each time, send out my slides for things and keep going like that.

DR: I believe that good artists who seem to follow pre-determined models of how to forge careers should instead invent the model that would best suit their work and hang on in there by their messy fingernails! In the words of the magnificently radical 10cc 'Art for Arts sake, Money for Gods sake'!!

MG: I don't see myself at the bottom, but I'm certainly not at the top, wherever the top is. I don't mind admitting that I've engineered meetings with people through other people that I know, but that's just what needs to be done, isnt it?

BW: I haven't got a clue but people are less rude to me than they were.

GD: Ok, money - do you make a living from what you do? What are the economical facts about being an artist?

RC: I teach 2-3 days a week. I do some mentoring. I do other bits and bobs when they come my way. I struggle as my practice, contrary to how it may look, is actually materials expensive. I sold some work recently, it was the first art fair it'd been in. I reckon I could sell more, but haven't really had the opportunity yet.

TD: A good deal of my work has been ephemeral so for a long time there wasn't a commodity as such. More recently Ive sold a few video and two-dimensional works to public collections, but apart from that, my main income is from lecturing. I don't have a gallery or a dealer.

BR: No, I wish! I work part-time gardening and as a part-time visiting lecturer on a BA course.

DR: Obviously I want to make great art that could stand up to my artist heroes and keep me in Arsenal season tickets forever! I make a living from selling my art, what was it Carl Andre said...'I make goods and sell goods to buy other peoples goods' fantastic! Oh and by teaching a lot!!

MG: Economically, I think it can be extremely hard to make money as an artist. In some ways, I'm lucky that the kind of work I make is not specifically work that would be hung in a gallery and sold. I can survive outside of a commercial market. I survive on a naive faith that 'everything will be all right'. I have a constant nagging at the back of my mind that interest will dry up tomorrow and I'll be back looking through the cards at the dole office.

BW: I write a little for TV as well as my art work so I seem to get by.

GD: With Frieze Art Fair, the British Art Show, Turner prize and all their associated spin-off events, what kind of message is this sending out to artists? Is ambition another dirty word?

RC: Ambition is an excellent thing - to make great work, not just to be a great artist.

TD: I think most people realise, unless they're terribly naive, that an incredible amount of lobbying takes place on all the above from gallerists and dealers etc. So firstly there isn't really a level playing field. Other than that, one accepts but rejects all of the above and carries on regardless, dignity and ambition intact.

BR: There's a lot of stuff out there that offers a platform to artists at all levels and some things are more attainable than others.

DR: Ambition is a great word. Competition between artists stinks of turps!!

MG: I think everyone agrees that until Frieze, there wasn't a real art fair in the UK, which was a ridiculous situation. I also think there are fundamental problems with shows like BAS and Turner Prize, but I think any artist will say that until they get asked to be in them.

BW: I think it's a message that makes some people ambitious. It makes some people angry and other people don't really care.

GD: This applies to art magazine culture as well and a dearth of any critical discourse. How influential are the art magazines and critics.

RC: I cannot get through Frieze - I blame the typography. Critical discourse is good, but it can sometimes tend to seem so distant from where I am. I'd like to be critical rather than endlessly supportive sometimes.

TD: They tend in the main to be London-centric, or at least the ones that I'm aware of and partly because of this, the discourse tends to be of a more rhetorical nature.

BR: I think they have a job to do just like we do, which is separate and has a different purpose.

DR: I like glossy art magazines and their adverts, they make me feel good. Of course I love all critics that say nice things about my work, lovely, lovely people!

MG: I genuinely don't think a good or bad review will do anything particularly different to someone's career in the long run, it will just help a few people decide whether to go and see the show or not.

BW: It's nice to see things you have done in magazines but I don't think it's the most important thing in the world.

GD: Artist-led culture promised so much, but seems to have lost its way. Do you agree/disagree and explain why this might be?

RC: I think it's because it's just the same now as everything else. Where's the opposition? Where's the critical thinking? Where's the ambition? What's the point of it?

TD: In truth, I don't think you can ever have an artist-led culture in a capitalist society.

BR: I think artist-led culture is so widespread and diverse, and therefore really hard to quantify.

MG: I don't agree it's lost its way but its hit a plateau. I think artist led activity, galleries, spaces etc, are vital for making for an interesting art scene, getting money to artists, helping artists find their feet etc, but they only seem able to take people so far.

BW: I didn't realise it had promised anything so if it has lost it's way I don't know. But compared to the music industry it doesn't seem to be that badly lost.

GD: If you were asked to give advice to an artist, what would you say?

RC: If you don't want to do it that much stop now.

TD: The grass is always greener on the other side....

BR: To someone just starting out after leaving college: keep talking to other artists.

DR: My advice to any artist would be not to make ART.

MG: This question deserves a witty, flippant answer doesn't it? But I'm just going to say, be interested and interesting and don't expect anyone to come knocking at your door, ever. Get out and look for the opportunities, or get them funded yourself.

BW: Don't ask for advice

GD: Finally (for now), if you weren't an artist what would you be and why?

RC: I'd be a alcoholic barrister because I love a good argument when I'm drunk.

TD: A gardener who wanted to be a pop star contemplating why on earth would anyone want to be an artist?

BR: I'd work for MI5.

MG: I want to say in 'prison or dead' because thats what rock stars ALWAYS say. Probably a failed musician, constantly harping on about the six months I spent as guitarist for some shamefully depleted version of a relatively successful punk/rock band from the 70s/80s, or a very happy dog walker.

BW: I would like to be a writer but my grammar and punctuation is terrible so I can't see how it would work. I did work experience as an Architect when I was younger.

DR: If I weren't an artist I'd be dressed in a gorilla suit!

Illustrations and further information:

Ruth Claxton
'I thought I was the audience and then
I looked at you (green eyes)', 2005
Ceramic and fimo
Height: 12 cm
the artist 2005

More information on Ruth Claxton
Ruth Claxton's website

Tim Davies
'Rag Field (detail)',2005
Rags, steel
Site specific intervention at Kells Priory, County Kilkenny
the artist 2005

More information on Tim Davies

Mark Gubb
'In My World', 2005
Inkjet print on paper
90cm x 90cm
the artist 2005

Boo Ritson
'Mini', 2005
Mini, emulsion
304.8cm x 152.4cm x 30.5cm
the artist 2005

More information on Boo Ritson

Danny Rolph
'Elsewhere', 2002-2005
Mixed media on Twinwall plastic
210 x 150 cm
Photocredit: Chris Lienhard
Courtesy the artist and Hales Gallery, London
the artist2005

Danny Rolph/Hales Gallery

Bedwyr Williams
'Grim Reaper Performance Roadshow, Dundee', 2003
Performance
the artist 2005

More information on Bedwyr Williams
Bedwyr Williams/Store Gallery