Make Art or Die Trying: The Only Art Book You’ll Ever Need If You Want to Make Art That Changes the World

In Make Art or Die Trying, multidisciplinary artist Stuart Semple demystifies art concepts, shares inspiring examples, and offers DIY ideas that allow readers to start and explore their own practice.

Learn to make art that can change the world.

Multidisciplinary artist, entrepreneur, and activist Stuart Semple believes that art is for everyone, and that everyone is an artist. Every single human has an inner spark of creativity that can make the world a better place. Art can change people, places, attitudes, and communities, healing and communicating when words aren’t enough.

Make Art or Die Trying empowers you to understand and connect with big art ideas and embrace your creative potential, no matter where you’re starting from. This stunning, informative, and inspiring book demystifies influential art concepts of the 20th and 21st centuries, including happenings, performance art, Bauhaus, and Fluxus, making them super-approachable and inviting you to learn, make art, and make change.

Each chapter:

- Explains a transformative art concept in a simple, straightforward, jargon-free way.
- Shares examples by amazing and innovative artists.
- Offers DIY ideas and exercises that encourage you to explore the concept yourself and ultimately develop your own unique conversation with the wider world.
Includes a QR code that allows access to an exclusive video by Stuart that takes the conversation to a deeper level.

Let Make Art or Die Trying be your guide to harnessing the power of creative ideas to create art and change in your life and community.

About the Author:

Stuart Semple is a world-renowned contemporary artist, curator, and activist. His multidisciplinary approach spans painting, printmaking, video, technology, sculpture, happenings, and performances. His works have been exhibited at the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Arts)/UK, Denver Art Museum, Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Barbican, the Whitworth, and several other museums and institutions. Stuart has written for The Guardian, VogueSpain, and Art of England magazine, and has presented for the BBC, including the BBC Radio Documentary “Hostile Design,” which was nominated for an ARIA (an “Academy Award” for radio). As a curator, Semple founded GIANT, the UK’s largest artist-run gallery space, where he presents a program of international contemporary art. He received a Happiness Hero medal from the United Nations on their first International Day of Happiness, in recognition of his artwork Happy Clouds, which took place outside Tate Modern. Stuart also founded culturehustle.com, which distributes art materials made in his studio, including his iconic Pinkest Pink and Blackest Black paints, to artists around the globe. Semple has spoken at Southbank Centre, Frieze Art Fair, Dublin Museum, Denver Art Museum, Oxford University, and the Royal College of Art, and he is an ambassador for mental health charity Mind, where he initiated a fund to provide arts therapies throughout England and Wales. He lives in Bournemouth, UK.