Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Seven Days in the Art World
Seven Days in the Art World | Sarah Thornton
7 posts | 12 read | 21 to read
The art market has been booming. Museum attendance is surging. More people than ever call themselves artists. Contemporary art has become a mass entertainment, a luxury good, a job description, and, for some, a kind of alternative religion.In a series of beautifully paced narratives, Sarah Thornton investigates the drama of a Christie's auction, the workings in Takashi Murakami's studios, the elite at the Basel Art Fair, the eccentricities of Artforum magazine, the competition behind an important art prize, life in a notorious art-school seminar, and the wonderland of the Venice Biennale. She reveals the new dynamics of creativity, taste, status, money, and the search for meaning in life. A judicious and juicy account of the institutions that have the power to shape art history, based on hundreds of interviews with high-profile players, Thornton's entertaining ethnography will change the way you look at contemporary culture.
Amazon Indiebound Barnes and Noble WorldCat Goodreads LibraryThing
Pick icon
100%
blurb
Abailliekaras
post image
35 likes1 stack add
review
SGB
Mehso-so

This is all about the very high end art world. The best chapter was about a NYC gallery.

review
Daniplx
post image
Mehso-so

I've been trying to read this book for years, and finally finished today. It's well written, and it's about a topic I love, but it just didn't do it for me. I think it was mostly the writing style I couldn't get into (too textbook). I wouldn't recommend it unless you're really into the art market.

blurb
Daniplx
post image

Here I am again, trying to snatch a few minutes to read! I've been reading this book for years and now I'm really trying to finish it.

review
MrBook
post image
Pickpick

A book I read for the #ManhattanArtBookClub, it's eye-opening to how the elite art world operates. ST relates what she sees, whom she interviews, etc., in an investigative journalism/travelogue format. The industry can be as zany as the media portrays. Shocking, revealing, head-scratching, intriguing, enlightening. Museums, auction houses, biennials, magazine offices: it's a romp! #PairWith: Laurent-Perrier Ultra Brut NV Champagne, chilled.

Erynecki Absolutely loved this book! 8y
Hobbinol I enjoyed this book too. 8y
writerlibrarian I liked all the info and the behind the scene but the tone of the narrative annoyed me. I was coming off reading The Lost Museum, which is great. Might explain my reaction. 8y
See All 6 Comments
MrBook @Erynecki @Hobbinol Yesss 😁🙌🏻👍🏻! I'd like to read her next one as well. @writerlibrarian I can see that. Lol, I guess I'm be adding TLM to my TBR now as well 😉👍🏻. 8y
Hobbinol I didn't know about the newer one. Thanks! 8y
MrBook @Hobbinol 😁👍🏻! Came out a few months ago. She profiles some younger artists, I believe. 8y
120 likes13 stack adds6 comments
review
Erynecki
post image
Pickpick

Adapted from the back of the book...an ethnography of the subcultures that make up the contemporary art world. It's been awhile since I read it, but I remember finding it eye opening. The art world is really a world into itself...

blurb
Caseythomas
post image

This book has garnered a variety of reactions, but so far its observations are sharp and interesting.

1 stack add