The book is cleverly divided into seven day-in-the-life chapters, each focusing on a different facet of the contemporary art world: an auction (at Christie's New York), an art school "crit" (at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia), an art fair (Art Basel), an artist's studio (that of the Japanese star Takashi Murakami), a prize (Britain's prestigious Turner Prize), a magazine (Artforum ) and a biennale (Venice). Thornton is a smart and savvy guide with a keen understanding of the subtle power dynamics that animate each of these interconnected milieus.
The hot, hip contemporary art world, argues sociologist Thornton, is a cluster of intermingling subcultures unified by the belief, whether genuine or feigned, that "nothing is more important than the art itself." It is a conviction, she asserts, that has transformed contemporary art into "a kind of alternative religion for atheists." Thornton, a contributor to Artforum.com and the New Yorker , presents an astute and often entertaining ethnography of this status-driven world. Each of the seven chapters is a keenly observed profile of that world's highest echelons: a Christie's auction, a "crit" session at the California Institute of the Arts and the Art Basel art fair. The chapter on auctions (where one auction-goer explains, "[I]t's dangerous to wear Prada.... You might get caught in the same outfit as three members of Christie's staff") is one of the book's strongest; the author's conversations about the role of the art critic with Artforum editor-in-chief Tim Griffin and the New Yorker 's Peter Schjeldahl are edifying. Thornton offers an elegant, evocative, sardonic view into some of the art world's most prestigious institutions. 8 illus. (Nov.)
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New Yorker and Artforum.com contributor Thornton (Club Cultures, 1996) takes a wide-angle view of art as creation-but also as production, marketing, personality and mega-profit. Her narrative moves gracefully across international boundaries, cultures, languages and genres. After a few generic remarks about today's art world, which she deems "polycentric" (less anchored in Paris and New York), the author considers why art has become so popular. We are more educated, she avers, more global and more affluent. High prices generate media attention; media attention generates more of everything. Thornton then takes us behind the scenes at a Christie's auction where bidding for a 1963 Warhol began at $8 million dollars. She interviews an assortment of people, including artist Keith Tyson, who declares auctions to be "vulgar, in the same way that pornography is vulgar." Next, she whisks us to California for an all-day session with artist/teacher Michael Asher. He's conducting a "crit": a collective critique of students' proposals and projects. Then to Switzerland for a massive contemporary art fair, where VIPs line up outside before the opening like nervous daddies hoping to nab his kid the newest PlayStation. The author takes us into the jury room for the Turner Prize at the Tate Gallery and inside the editorial offices at Artforum. Of that venerable publication, circulation about 60,000, Thornton extracts from some readers the confession that they simply look at the picture. "The Studio Visit" follows prolific Japanese artist Takashi Murakami through his three studios. The Venice Biennale gives the author a chance to catch up on her lap swimming in the Hotel Cipriani's 100-foot saltwater pool.Thornton conducted many interviews in preparation for her "days" and later admits that she sometimes employed a technique she calls "displaced nonfiction," quoting, for example, as a comment from an exhibition crowd something she actually noted in a prior (or later) phone conversation. An exhilarating guided tour of some very exclusive circles. Agent: David Kuhn/Kuhn Projects
"The best book yet written about the modern-art boom…a Robert Altmanesque panorama of the most important cultural phenomenon of the last ten years."
"A field guide to the nomadic tribes of the contemporary art world. The book was reported and written in a heated art market, but it is poised to endure as a work of sociology."
New York Times Book Review
"Seven Days in the Art World …seems destined to outlive its moment…Thornton offers an indelible portrait of a peculiar society, simultaneously cutthroat and curious…glamorous yet filled with people who would have been unpopular in high school."
"A one-stop tutorial on an often insular subculture…light-hearted but sociologically acute."
"Finely wrought and thoroughly researched…[with] an ingenious structure…and spot-on characterizations…the author draws readers into the experience…[with her] infectious curiosity and meticulous reporting."
"An entertaining and lucid account of the mysterious ways of contemporary art…[Thornton] does well to resist the temptation to draw any glib, overarching conclusions. There is more than enough in her rigorous, precise reportage…for the reader to make his or her own connections."
Financial Times - Peter Aspden
"A terrific book—detailed, gossipy, and insightful…By the end of the book, you almost understand how [Steve] Cohen could shell out $8 million for a rotting 14-foot shark pickled in formaldehyde."
"[An] intelligently written…refreshingly open-minded exploration."
"A one-stop tutorial on an often insular subculture…light-hearted but sociologically acute."
"Thornton offers an elegant, evocative, sardonic view into some of the art world's most prestigious institutions." ---Publishers Weekly Starred Review
Tavia Gilbert is upbeat and crisp as she narrates Thornton’s ethnographic investigation of the modern art world. Thornton spends a day in each of seven different art environments: Christie’s auction house, an all-day MFA art critique class, the Basel Art Fair, the site of the Turner Prize in London, ARTFORUM magazine, Takashi Murakami’s art studio, and the Venice Biennale. It all involves dizzying amounts of money, self-conscious artists, pseudo-intellectual jargon, and provocative sculptures built by an army of workers. Gilbert keeps the listener’s attention as she adeptly delivers the sly humor and sense of wonder. It’s also an artistic trip around the world. Gilbert takes the smart route by only occasionally adopting an accent, but her choice does mean some loss of the international flavor, and one may forget that one is in Switzerland or Japan or Britain. A.B. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
FEBRUARY 2015 - AudioFile
