The exhibition is a response to the following statement from Tracey Emin which originally appeared in an interview with [smiths], the university's student-led magazine:

“Tough shit. You don’t deserve to be an artist. You’re doing another course, end of story. Don’t do your course and then double. You can’t.”

So if art is your hobby are you not an artist?

“Yeah, it makes you someone who enjoys recreationally painting. But you haven’t had the training, you haven’t been doing the discipline, you’re not learning to draw, you’re not learning how to paint.”

(source: smiths magazine, 2016)

Goldsmiths is known for creative students, yet the gap between creativity and art still seems so wide. Artists exist outside of the Art Department at Goldsmiths but often feel invisible because there are not many platforms that celebrate the interdisciplinary,  polymathic talents of our students.

We invite you to attend You don’t deserve to be an artist, an exhibition which takes a space previously reserved for an elite few and transforms it into a display of the diverse artistic Goldsmiths community.