Career Suicide is about the realities of working in the contemporary art world for most professional artists, the thousands of unfashionable, little-known and underpaid ones who have to do all manner of unfashionable, little-known and underpaid things to survive. It will also answer some of the questions that outsiders often ask about contemporary art, and some that they don't: Why do some artists spend their whole careers doing stupid stuff like mutilating mannequins or painting old bits of wood with baffling phrases? Why does everyone in the art world get paid, apart from the artists? Why do most art students spend years doing their MA, closely followed by them doing sweet FA? Who are the HoWiAs, and what the hell do they think they're doing? How and why did a bunch of paintings that looked like vandalised portraits of SpongeBob get taken so seriously at an international art fair?

Why do some artists spend their whole careers doing stupid stuff like mutilating mannequins or painting old bits of wood with baffling phrases? Why does everyone in the art world get paid, apart from the artists? Why do most art students spend years doing their MA, closely followed by them doing sweet FA? Who are the HoWiAs, and what the hell do they think they're doing? Artist and writer Alistair Gentry reveals all...it's career suicide!