Thanks to NetGalley and Columbia University Press for the ARC!

There’s something patently absurd about Marin Kosut’s "Art Monster," but that is perhaps the book’s greatest strength.

Let’s get it out of the way—art is kind of ridiculous, particularly the highly performative variety Marin Kosut describes in this book. It’s often incomprehensible and estranging, but it’s also completely necessary.

The same could be said for "Art Monster," a book ostensibly about art and New York but really about much more and also nothing in particular.

It’s a glorious mess.

The book wrestles with the commercialization of artistic practice—the need to turn everything into a “hustle” as a “creative.” Refreshingly (and annoyingly), Kosut scoffs at the mentality that everyone is an artist. Her exclusionary attitude is grating, but it feels like a definitional necessity. We can’t talk about what we can’t name. That said, for a book that positions itself as a critique of capitalism’s influence on art, she’s arguably too preoccupied with production and the social capital of the artist’s role. While she would—and does—claim the opposite, much of the book feels like an attempt to have it both ways.

For a book about New York, it’s also odd how poorly the city seems to fit in here. Each chapter feels tangential, even when the author attempts substantial topics. Kosut writes about gentrification pushing people out, and she frames it as a crisis because artists aren’t be able to create in the same way once they leave—they need the city. But do they? Isn’t art a response to the conditions surrounding it? Again, Kosut slips into a focus on production—art isn’t lost, but a certain kind of output and lifestyle might be. It’s a self-serving eulogy. Normally I’m skeptical of critiques that an author is too privileged to broach certain subjects, but that feels like the case here. So much of the book feels disingenuous as Kosut mourns barriers to outsider art with the liminal privilege of an insider. She has a great deal of social—and literal—mobility due to her academic status, and while I think the systemic issues she addresses are certainly problems, we never see them as such—they appear only as problems to her. It gets extra sticky when she explicitly identifies artists as a minoritized class alongside the “working class and the undocumented.” Yikes.

"Art Monster" is also odd in that it reads like the excessive ramblings of a corkboard conspiracy theorist, with fraying threads barely connecting all of the ideas. Each chapter has a topic, but it is often disposed of quickly and violently to entertain Kosut’s other thoughts. It frequently doesn’t work. This is a semi-academic text with the constant, button-pushing digressions of a provocateur—what if COVID was political? Maybe we shouldn’t trust doctors. It gets to a point where it’s actually difficult to tell what she’s saying, and I write that as someone who reads academic texts for fun.

This lack of focus is further compounded by recurrent, explicit rebuttals to early reviewers who found her arguments untenable. Rather than clarify her points, she resorts to little more than, “well, they’re wrong.” I’m not sure how a book can hold together when its chief advocates—friends and early readers–are viewed as antagonistic.

And yet, despite all these critiques, I found myself really energized by parts of "Art Monster." Marin Kosut has an irresistible conviction about the importance of art, particularly with how it interacts with different kinds of capital. The implications of that conviction are often quite muddled—as noted, this book makes almost no sense—but I still found myself drawn into its orbit. The author’s discussions on artistic practice are exciting, tapping into the incongruity between the need to create and public disinterest. There are moments when the free-wheeling anecdotes transform into something meaningful amidst the chaos.

In the end, like all art, "Art Monster" invites and resists a single simple question: What does it mean?

Maybe nothing. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe we can’t know.

I think readers’ enjoyment will hinge entirely on whether they need an answer to the question.

Art Monster - On the Impossibility of New York by Marin Kosut is a fascinating, vivid insight into the highly competitive art world and those who dedicate their life to their art, often consigned to working on the margins of the industry and rarely achieving a foothold to get themselves seen.

Centred around the New York art scene Kosut examines how creativitiy is being pushed aside for a more professional approach to the creation of art and reflects on how this detracts from the core tenet of art itself, expression and creativity without restraint.

Beautifully written, empathetic, passionate and highly knowledgable, Art Monster is a fascinating work and a valuable insight for all students (and lovers) of art and indeed, fringe art awy from the heavily advertised art we are told we should like, instead of seeking the art that we honestly enjoy

Brilliant

Thank you to Netgalley, Columbia University Press and the author Marin Kosut for this fascinating ARC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

Thank you to NetGalley, Columbia University Press, and most of all, Marin Kosut.

Kosut’s ‘Art Monster’ is golden syrup for the brain. With a poetic prowess that rivals many contemporary writers, the author disperses seeds of wonder. From Valerie Solanas to pay phone art, Kosut somehow manages to plug her brain into the readers.

If you read just one non-fiction book this year, make it this one. I have visited New York three times in my life, and ‘Art Monster’ adeptly portrays the saccharine romantics of the narratives that surround it. At one point, Kosut discusses the class differences in New York, and how the language of wealth can be often limiting.

The chapter I enjoyed the most was the one on The Chelsea Hotel. That hotel is a kind of mythical creature for an artist, and Marin Kosut details this just as well, often interspersing references that pique the readers interest.

‘Art Monster’ is an absolute feat of poetic memoir meets cultural criticism. The author is removed from the book just enough to ensure that it is does not become an autobiography. Marin Kosut is a phenomenal writer and I am eager to read more of their work.