• Rant 39: Get Real - What Makes You an Artist?

    What, or who, decides if an artist is 'professional' or not? If you have another income to support your practice, does that make you an amateur, or worse still, a hobbyist? Alison Sharkey questions where the boundaries lie.

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  • Rant 38: Striving for success

    Are art students too focused on business and professional practice, to the detriment of experimentation? Will this year's crop of new graduates have ambitions of success that cannot be attained? Joyce Cronin looks at the expectations of artists

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  • Rant 37: No Pay To Play

    The No Soul for Sale festival of independents at Tate Modern in May has raised a plethora of concerns over explotiation of artists and fair payment. Andy Abbott joins the fray, but suggests that focus on fair pay might be at the cost of a deeper critique of the institutional art world.

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  • Rant 36: Scrap the Degree Show

    Are Degree Shows outmoded, old hat and irrelevant? What would a viable alternative be? As we head into the Degree Show season Pete Hindle expresses his views on this long established art tradition

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  • Rant 35: The Emancipated Sign

    Has technology really changed the balance of power between artist and institution? Zachary Colbert investigates what advantages there are for artists that utilise online resources and social media.

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  • Rant 34: Help Ourselves

    Lawrence Bradby delves deep into the political quagmire that is the upcoming general election and asks who will artists be voting for this time? Traditionally a left leaning bunch, will artists find solace in New Labour or will the entrepreneurship and financial pressures of being self-employed drive artists to the right?

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  • Rant 33: Why is art more important than the planet?

    Can the arts really commit to a low carbon future? Is implementing energy saving and recycling schemes enough? Robert Butler doesn't think so. He asks why is art more important than the planet? Why shouldn't art have to rethink its priorities in the ongoing battle to reduce our collective carbon footprint?

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  • Rant 32: Is all art (politically) useless?

    In keeping with the theme of this issue our new Ranter Becky Hunter asks us if political art can ever empower us? Or does it just reduce the anarchistic spirit to aesthetics and art dollars? Can art ever replace action? And if you displace the art from the original political context, does this dilute its message?

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  • Rant 31: Alice and the Curious Curatoriat

    This week Shaun plunges into the world of the semi-professional art guru - or the 'curatoriat', as he has termed the ever growing army of art school graduates working not as artists, but as facilitators of art activity in their cities. With his ever critical eye he asks what the growth of the 'curatoriat' means to the individual artist...

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  • Rant 30: Waving or Drowning ?

    Our new Ranter-in-Residence for February, Shaun Belcher, starts off on a topical, if controversial note, asking 'has Arts Council England (ACE) failed? Do we really need it anyway?'. Shaun asks if the lottery years have set ACE up for a fall as we move into tighter financial times and political pressures are heightening.

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