Seven Days in the Art World

i teach art at the community college level and assign this book now. really great cross section of topics and really well written. not super gatekeeper-y, which my students really appreciate at the level they are.

If "all the world's a stage" then Sarah Thornton's "Seven Days in the Art World" captures some entertaining performances by elitist cabals of the contemporary art world in seven acts. Over the span of five years, cultural sociologist Thornton visits seven different stages during the rise of mass contemporary art consumption: Christie's auction house in Manhattan; a critique session at a California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) seminar class in Los Angeles; Art Basel in Switzerland; Tate Museum's Turner Prize competition in London; Artforum magazine; Japanese artist/celebrity Takashi Murakami's studios; and Venice Biennale.Although Thornton's "participant observations" on the surface are predictable and reinforce the stereotypical attitudes and scenarios affixed to the "high class" art world, her insider access offers readers a closer look at the personas and relationship dynamics of those at the top of their game in the art market. Christopher Burge, Christie's chief auctioneer, with his script book in hand does a final rehearsal run in preparation for the night auction's bidding blitz. At Art Basel, Thornton meets Tim Blum and Jeff Poe, owners and art dealers of a Los Angeles gallery as they are installing their Japanese star Takashi Murakami's painting. Artists are rarely seen at auctions and artfairs where money does most of the talking for collectors on the prowl. (Many dealers and collectors maintain close relationships with one another as a way to buy-in and cultivate an artist's body of work.)Art dealers, collectors, curators, and writers are all taste-makers validating or shunning an artist and/or artwork's significance. Martin Creed, past Turner prize winner says to her, "If the artists create artworks, then the judges create a winner. Whoever they chose is a reflection of themselves." Prime space in terms of physical location at Art Basel and Venice Biennale or advertising in the Artforum magazine, vie for optimal promotion and branding.And if you were curious as to the players' positions and ranking, Thornton provides a telling snap shot as Murakami's entourage board an airplane. "The seat assignment offers a near-perfect representation of the hierarchies of the art world. Murakami sits by himself in 1A, a window seat in business class... Blum and Poe sit in 2C and 2D. The MOCA people are in economy, row 18. Desmarais is nearby, in 19. The six Kaikai Kiki staff members are aligned in row 43." Art can be a very lucrative business machine with the right combination of talent and invested supporting cast.The book portrays the upper-crust of the art world as a playground for self-satisfying, money seeking egos and art as a conversation, a religion, a representation of one's cultural worth. The actors also display the power and influence their position holds.Thornton's writing is free flowing and mostly easy to read aside from maybe the one too many name dropping encounters. She does describe the main characters that she interviews at length as some reappear in another scene. But readers are still expected to have some knowledge of the art world or enough interest to familiarize themselves with it.

This is, hands-down, the single best guide for outsiders to the inner life of the art world, from the fledgling artists hoping to make their mark to the affluent collectors and the dealers, curators and advisors who surround them.Her structure is carefully chosen and works beautifully -- breaking the art world down into seven parts, each devoted to a specific group or dimension (the auction, the studio visit, the art fair, etc.), she sheds light on the characters and issues that arise in the context of each. There is enough overlap to make this structure function -- for instance, we encounter gallerists Jeff Poe and Tim Blum first at ArtBasel, then rejoin them as part of her chapter on visiting Takashi Murakami's studio(s), where Poe and Blum discuss an upcoming retrospective with the artist and museum curators. To me, the most intriguing and enlightening part of this structure was the way it shifted, from one chapter to the next, from a view of the art from the outside (the perspective of the collector or the critic, say) to the inside (the creative process itself.) So, a chapter about the "crit" process at CalArts is followed immediately by one about the vast artworld schmoozefest that is ArtBasel (with the NetJets booth and the omnipresent champagne).Thornton has an eye for that kind of telling detail that only the best journalists possess and a knack for knowing (most of the time) how to use it best. For instance, in the studio visit chapter, she spots the passports of Blum and Poe are crammed full of visas and entry and exit stamps -- not just a random observation but one that reflects the global nature of the art market itself, which requires its participants to dash from visiting a collector in Russia to an art fair in London and on to visit a studio in Beijing. The only downside of this "ethnographic" approach is that sometimes the details that she observes and includes as a result of this feel less useful -- we don't care how heavy her handbag begins to feel at ArtBasel, or how the Japanese car drivers in Toyama jump to open doors for visitors so that no fingerprint mars the shine on the car.I've attended a number of Christie's auctions, stuffed into the uncomfortable press section that Thornton describes so accurately, and watched the bidding process. Reading this section, I felt as if I were back there again, experiencing the moments of boredom and tension that she chronicles so compellingly. There is no disconnect between my experience and her portrayal of it -- just additional level of background detail that I had never appreciated before (such as the fact that Christopher Burge has nightmares of being caught naked or without his sale "book" in front of an audience of a thousand angry would-be bidders).The only area in which Thornton fails to deliver is describing the creative process itself in a way that the average reader will find comprehensible and compelling. But that, I suspect, is as much due to the inherent difficulty of discussing a visual art in words -- certainly, the young art students she profiles struggle as much themselves to do just this.What impressed me the most -- in addition to the high level of reporting and writing -- was Thornton's ability to weave a path through all the politics and ego that fills the art market (and makes comparable nonsense on Wall Street and in Washington look like child's play in comparison...) Even as she chronicles the auction scene, she doesn't get caught up in the buzz and excitement or fall victim to the too-easy trap of criticizing people for being willing to pay outrageous sums for works of art. She addresses those concerns, most effectively in an anecdote where one collector, charged with selling her parents' immense collection to create a charitable foundation, muses on the auction process: "It's been a real loss of innocence... When you think of all the good that money could do... Nobody in the auction room thinks about that." But Thornton doesn't dwell on that, any more than she succumbs to the gushing that is all too often part of the art market. It's an admirably balanced portrayal.All in all, a tour de force.Anyone looking for more insider-y glimpses of the art world might turn to Collecting Contemporary, by a major collector, or to a novel penned by the wife of a hedge fund manager who is a force of sorts in the New York art scene: Lulu Meets God and Doubts Him.

A very smart thought provoking book about the different worlds that cohabite in the art scene. Even beyond art, it is striking to observe how eco-systems are built around populations that may often ignore one another and even sometimes despice one another... and though create a coherent and compelling whole. It's a great piece of work for anyone interested in art, in particular contemporary art.

It's a deceptively sophisticated jog through one very small aspect of "the art world." And that aspect is, overwhelmingly, the economic and pretentious side. She misses deeper truths. At no time does she convey the depth of conviction that many artists have about their work, or how that depth of conviction might be shared by a viewer.Even her description of the studio (and artist) focus on a celebrity successful arts who has others executing his ideas. She portrait mostly the aftermath of a long and difficult artistic journey.

She really paints with words.

For a person who has always been fascinated by the art world and didn't have much insider information, I really enjoyed the book.

A delightful read which makes me want to travel and see the many places that Thornton has visited.