Salut l’artiste

How do artists create? How do they produce their monumental works? How do they sell? The aim of this book, with the second title of «Idées reçues sur les artistes» (Given ideas on artists), is to erase certain prejudices and clichés. It is built through various encounters and interviews and shows that the Bohemian world of the workshop and the nearby café have often disappeared in favor of a simple lap-top and the once necessary gallery owner is easily replaced with talent by personal strategies based on marketing tools. The traditional example of Warhol has been updated with more recent cases such as the one of Wim Delvoye. The super-power of commercial fairs, the pauperization of artists (30 % have the minimum wage), the new paths of provocation (from Andress Serrano’s Piss Christ to Maurizio Cattelan’s suicidal squirrel), copyright or woman’s place in art: all these questions are looked into, often based on concrete examples.

• Salut l’artiste by Isabelle de Maison Rouge, Le Cavalier bleu, 2010, 18 €.