New York is a city filled with creative and interesting people. If you want to make it work though, you need to be able to separate the hipster shit from the shit that’s actually good. There’s a difference between being obscure and too cool for school (hipster) v. knowing what the fuck is up and still looking cool without dressing a little weird and having ironic tattoos of food all of your body (art as fuck). I’ll show you how it’s done.
By 
Get a Trust Fund
The real way to be art as fuck without being a total hipster is to have a trust fund but to actually utilize it. Instead of spending the money on drugs, weird clothing, ironic tattoos of hot dogs and candy corn, you should use this money to invest in some sort of gallery space (or a really nice apartment with a lot of walls). Next step with said trust fund money is to invest in art. This requires some knowledge and a good eye, so use a portion of your trust fund money for school (start with art history and read The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe). If you have shitty taste, hire a gay to help you.
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Get a Real Job
This doesn't mean working on 'photo/video/fashion shoots' on the weekends and working at Beacon's Closet during the week. A real job involves an annual salary and benefits. If you don't get benefits, you don't have a real job, it's as simple as that. In order to maintain your art-as-fuckness, it is important to be a part of the art scene. We all know that most jobs in art pay very little, so to keep connected you have to be creative. If this means sleeping around with Chelsea gallery owners or volunteering at the New Museum, get 'er done.
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Don't live in Williamsburg
If you want to be a hipster, that's your spot. If you don't want to be a hipster, stay in Manhattan. Actually, hipsters have started migrating towards Bushwick and have now dubbed the area "East Williamsburg." Chelsea is probably the best place to live if you want to be art as fuck considering that's where all of New York's SoHo's galleries moved when rent was jacked way the fuck up. The Lower East Side also serves as a great alternative. Personally, I live in Murray Hill which is a huge mind fuck for anyone who knows me because I am the least Long Island person alive. It's all about MESHING people. Whoever said conforming is bad is dead wrong.
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Speak multiple languages
This will help when you're meeting people at museums and galleries who are well dressed and who can actually buy art because their currency is currently sodomizing the USD. Being art as fuck means being smart and business savvy. It also means being cultured and international. Get your Rosetta Stone cds or start watching nothing but Nouvelle Vague films because money speaks, especially when it's foreign money.
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Shop at Theory
I promise you that if you shop here and only here, with a few basics from American Apparel, you can cross the line from overly trendy to sophisticated and cool. Theory is the kind of clothing where you can wear it to work and look good and wear it on the weekend and look good. Also, if you want to be art as fuck, Theory is great because they don't really believe in colors. Grey, black, white and maybe some colored accents are permissible.
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Tom says...
you owe me 5 minutes of my life back, what a waste
eh says...
i wasn’t so crazy about this either. no one cares what neighborhood you reside in, either.
the best way to be “art as fuck” is to be an artist.
eh says...
but you have a cute nose.
lk says...
trust fund? seriously? you deserve a punch in the face.
i want 2 minutes of my life back. i stopped reading halfway through.
brian says...
I’m art as fuck. Thanks Melissa
gobacktobrooklyn says...
It’s funny how your article has so many negative comments. Your article describes hipsters very well. See, Hipsters are a sensitive group of people. They tend to stay in areas with large hipster concentrations. While, oddly enough, thinking they are much better than the ones around them. Comically enough, they differ very slightly. Notice how this male hipster is wearing his ‘nice’ t-shirt to this rooftop party. This particular t-shirt depicts a camp located in the country side of Arizona, one that he no doubtingly did not attend. Often times, the male and female hipster will have bangs covering their eyes. In these cases, the organism will have to rely on other senses to find a mate. The female is attracted to the combined scent of cheap beer and hotdogs, while the male is attracted to the stench of cigarettes. Truly a marvelous specie making parents proud.
hipster says...
best way to be art as fuck is to shoot heron and wear black.
anything involving a trust fund or real job is extra fin.
melissa says...
hipster, that was the OLD way to be art as fuck.
heroin stopped being cool in the ’90s!