Art, Not Chance: Nine Artists Diaries

Edited by Paul Allen, photographs by Hugo Glendinning (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 2001, ISBN 0 903319 94 2, £8.50 [£11.59 incl p&p])

This is a nice little book - a good reminder of priorities and processes of making art. It grew out of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s grants programme, Time to Experiment, which allowed professional artists working across the arts ‘research and development’ time. These nine were chosen to record their thoughts in diary form. Described as musician, writer, poet, sculptor, composer, choreographer, theatre director, performance artist and playwright, they mostly write of multi-faceted careers, juggling their own and collaborative projects.

Paul Allen talks about the contemporary artist travelling “the cultural trade routes, making a transaction here, selling a performance there, charging whatever can be got for a sight of the tricks and trappings and truths in the carpet bag of his or her mind, filling in tax forms, and trying to comply with local law and lore”. And their evidence confirms, as Sian Ede says in the introduction, that “while there are orthodoxies of good practice … there are no set rules”. Entrepreneurs, perhaps, but not as currently perceived by many.

These are revealing commentaries on making art happen - managing creative practices in contemporary times. The book is an excellent contribution of literature in the field and an antidote to the ever-increasing bureaucratic imperatives which lead Sian Ede to say “We live in a culture where the production of art is increasingly described in .. eviscerating language."

You will likely find your own favourite accounts. I certainly did, and will be encouraging others, including my students and colleagues, to read this book.

Janet Summerton is a researcher and writer who also runs the Arts and Cultural Management programmes at the University of Sussex.

SAM's Books compiles the Bookshop section of Arts Professional magazine, and used to compile Bookshop in its predecessor, Arts Business. This review has appeared in Arts Professional or Arts Business. It gives a longer and more personal description of the book than appears in the booklists.