Alexander Adams
Leaving Las Vegas

Fantasies of exiting the art world are a recurring feature in critiques of the contemporary art scene. Competition for success and fame is fierce, and surveys regularly highlight that artists believe they are overworked and underpaid. It is no wonder, then, that numerous painters and social practice animators are seeking refuge outside of the system. 

But what is there outside? What if the artist’s only way out of the art world is through art? Isn’t the act of exit, contrary to claims of the official art world’s political and social relevance to the so-called ‘real world’, in fact, art’s key interface with it?

The artist and writer Alexander Adams quit the London art world, but not art, in the early 2000s. His exit, occasioned by a failed project of selling paintings on commission, was punctuated by bruising rejections and mistakes. These events are the background of the painter’s latest novel, The Naked Spur, which follows him through a series of bruising rejections. 

Part satire, part confession, the book is an exploration of one artist’s deterioration in an art world that is indifferent to his, if not all, art. Describing the painter’s descent from a perspective of two decades, it offers a poignant reflection on the practice of art without the art world. It also makes a not-entirely-pessimistic prognosis for art at a time of mass exodus from the art world, one only likely to intensify in the face of imminent institutional collapse.

This conversation with Alexander Adams will launch The Naked Spur, which attendees will be able to purchase at a special discount.