A performance by Nina Bauer & Lisa Großkopf.

In the very lecture hall of the former Vienna University of Economics and Business, where the laws of the market were once taught, the performance lecture How to Make It as an Artist™ poses a provocative question: what does it take to succeed as an artist today? The event dissects the booming self-optimization industry targeted at creatives. Advice books, coaching sessions, tutorials, and social media gurus flood the scene with supposedly foolproof formulas for artistic breakthroughs. Their mantra: art must be strategic, scalable, efficient — a business like any other, often reduced to visible skills, catchy aesthetics, and quantifiable success. This narrative promises individual agency, yet it fundamentally clashes with more complex, critical, or process-oriented understandings of art — all while systematically ignoring the precarious structures and dependencies of the actual art world.

This entrepreneurial mindset is no longer confined to self-help gurus and influencers; it’s increasingly infiltrating art academies. Institutions once regarded as bastions of critical thinking and artistic freedom are now introducing increasingly standardized curricula, complete with courses on portfolio optimization and creative entrepreneurship. As a result, the focus is subtly shifting away from in-depth engagement with content and form, toward the mechanics of personal branding and self-promotion.

How to Make It as an Artist™ adopts the formal structure of a university lecture, aligning its aesthetic with the very systems it critiques. It draws extensively on research material sourced from the coaching industry, self-help literature, and various social media channels that claim to offer artists a roadmap to success. This material — including success strategies, marketing tips, and visual examples — is presented in a factual, lecture-like tone and forms the backbone of the event.

Critical reflection emerges through the careful curation, juxtaposition, and analytical commentary of these found elements. A particular focus lies on how these popular media sources often construct a narrow, sometimes anachronistic image of what it means to be an artist — one centered on traditional, figurative, and aesthetically pleasing painting, with success defined primarily through marketability. By earnestly presenting this material within a quasi-authentic academic format, the performance reveals its internal contradictions, ideological undertones, and the stark contrast between such narratives and the diverse, often precarious realities of contemporary art practice.