There exists a series of contemporary artists who continually defy the traditional role of the artist/author, including Art & Language, Guerrilla Girls, Bob and Roberta Smith, Marvin Gaye Chetwynd and Lucky PDF. In Death of the Artist, Nicola McCartney explores their work and uses previously unpublished interviews to provoke a vital and nuanced discussion about contemporary artistic authorship. How do emerging artists navigate intellectual property or work collectively and share the recognition? How might a pseudonym aid 'artivism'? Most strikingly, she demonstrates how an alternative identity can challenge the art market and is symptomatic of greater cultural and political rebellion. As such, this book exposes the art world's financially incentivised infrastructures, but also examines how they might be reshaped from within. In an age of cuts to arts funding and forced self-promotion, this offers an important analysis of the pressing need for the artistic community to construct new ways to reinvent itself and incite fresh responses to its work.

Exclusive interviews with elusive, but popular, artists.

List of FiguresPrefaceIntroduction1. Parodies of the Self: Surrealism and Ambivalent Authorship in 'Rrose Selavy' and 'Claude Cahun'2. Collective Practice: Art & Language and LuckyPDFInterview: Socio-Art & The Art of Interaction: James Early of LuckyPDFInterviewed by Nicola McCartney on 9 May 20133. Anonymity and Feminism: Guerrilla GirlsInterview: Feminist Avengers: Guerrilla GirlsInterviewed by Nicola McCartney on 14 August 20134. Pseudonyms: Bob and Roberta SmithInterview: Art Mythologies: Bob and Roberta SmithInterviewed by Nicola McCartney on 18 February 20135. Performance and Collaboration: 'No, I'm Spartacus'. . . Chetwynd!ConclusionNotesBibliographyIndex