Talk Art The Interviews: Conversations on art, life and everything

"This book is based on a fantastic podcast by Russell Taylor and Robert Diament. I got into it quite a few years ago, when it first started. It somehow hadn’t occurred to me until then as a Renaissance art historian that, well, all the artists I learned about are dead! There’s only so much that you can know about them, only so much they can tell us. For the art historian in me, this podcast and this book have been a real breath of fresh air, hearing directly from artists who are not being put on a pedestal, but behaving like makers, like real people, real practical living individuals. The whole creative process is endlessly fascinating. Reading Your Brain on Art and learning about neurological states has been a great privilege because it’s given me a whole new way of understanding human making and human creativity. And in this book we can hear directly from creatives about that process. The interviews encompass established names like Grayson Perry or Tracy Emin, as well as new names. It’s not just visual artists, it also extends to other art forms, and includes conversations with the likes of Elton John, Paul Smith and Stephen Fry . All kinds of people making all kinds of art. In the end, it’s a glorification of simply being alive. The podcast and the books emerging from it are almost like an encyclopaedia of contemporary voices in art. I think that’s why they’ve been so successful. The way they write and talk about art is not elitist, either. In spite of all of the disasters going on in the world, we live in a really exciting, creative time. It’s a world where we’re not blocked in by having to create religious art, for example, or art that’s not about sex, or whatever. People can be creating in whatever way they want. That’s a very significant element of positivity in our often dark times."