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    Seven Days in the Art World
    Seven Days in the Art World
    Seven Days in the Art World
    Audiobook8 hours

    Seven Days in the Art World

    Written by Sarah Thornton

    Narrated by Tavia Gilbert

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 23, 2014
    ISBN9781494577681
    Seven Days in the Art World

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    Reviews for Seven Days in the Art World

    3.5/5

    162 ratings14 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Thornton's "Seven Days in the Art World" is a multi-faceted look into seven corners of the art world, from auctions to artist studios, from art fairs to art magazines. As an active observer, Thornton manages to gain access to many high-profile areas and people, and shares with us her journey from the first person. Playing the professional ethnography, Thorton rarely ever gets her personal opinion take the lead, and lets the artists/curators/gallerists/auctioneers/etc. take the fore by selecting quoting them.The ground covered and voices represented in this book are astounding. For an investigation into a world that has many tiers of access, Thorton does remarkably as an outsider. As a writer, she keeps the prose engaging, lively and focused on her quest to understand. The only reason I gave it 4.5 and not 5 stars is that it lacks a solid ending – it was probably omitted intentionally to make a point, but as a reader, the absence is still pronounced.
    • 3/5
      This book if good, yet this app is horrible. Can't manage to download a book, hold my place while listening. I'm not sure how this app works at all. Going back to audible!
    • 3/5
      A fun, deceptively sophisticated jog through one very small aspect of "the art world." And that aspect is, overwhelmingly, the economic. This is a book about how rich people have nothing to do with their enormous amounts of money, so they spend it on objects that may or may not be of any aesthetic value. But they are great status markers. I mean, would you even go to someone's party if they didn't have a Jeff Koons? No way, right?

      The first few chapters--one at a contemporary art auction, when at an MFA seminar, and one at an art fair--are really good. After that, it gets a little tedious, and nauseating, which is how people with so much money that they don't know what to do with it always make me feel, as well as people who structure their entire lives around giving said very wealthy people things to do with their money that aren't, e.g., paying taxes.

      Thornton makes no bones about the topic of this book; it is an ethnography, it is not at all interested in making aesthetic distinctions, and you'll have to decide for yourself if Takashi Murakami is interesting and if his work is worthwhile. I have a hard time believing that anyone could finish reading the book, however, without making a pretty strong aesthetic judgment on the people Thornton's writing about.
    • 5/5
      This book is ingeniously organized, since each chapter is a visit to distinct piece of the interlocking art world. The most intriguing part for me was the seminar at Cal Arts, where you really learn how artists go about thinking about the work they are creating. Also, the visit to the Venice Biennial was enlightening, and the visit to the studio of Takashi Murakami showed how art becomes enterprise. The work chronicles the interdependence of creativity and commerce from high stakes to high art. Though I would have very different reactions than the narrator to the places she visits, her journey is definitely enlightening.
    • 3/5
      This is very helpful for understanding the Art game. Doesn't talk about how the money is moved around however.
    • 4/5
      This is a look at the world of contemporary art by ethnographic researcher Sarah Thornton. Each "day" comprises a long article about an aspect of the art world. I found it to be fascinating and surprising. You'll laugh, but I hadn't thought of the world of contemporary art as being quite so pretentious or as preoccupied with money. The book opens with an auction at Christie's, in which one's importance is indicated by where one is allowed to sit. I'd always thought it would be fun to attend an auction. I don't think that anymore. This was a good opening for the book, illustrating how much art is just another plaything of the very wealthy. In subsequent chapters, Thornton looks at a class at CalArts in which students present their work for peer critiques; Art Basel, a Swiss art fair in which galleries have booths and do much of their year's sales; the announcement of the Turner Prize, a British art award which is as much a sign of prestige for artists as the Booker prize is for writers; ArtForum magazine; Japanese artist Takashi Murakami's various studios, in which his work is carried out by other artists and where marketing opportunities are pursued and, finally, the Venice Biennale, an international event for contemporary art.Even as art itself is a constantly changing thing, how art is created, marketed, sold and resold hasn't changed. The most successful artists are as concerned for securing patronage and in marketing their image as they were in Renaissance Italy. And people have always bought art and, with their choices, indicated both their taste and wealth. If you have an interest in the subject, this is an excellent look at a world hidden from people who visit an art museum or gallery.
    • 3/5
      Seven Days in the Art World. Sarah Thornton. 2008. I did not finish this book and stopped reading it when I missed the discussion at the museum, but when I picked it up to write this annotation I decided I’d try to finish it. The writer spent a week visiting major art venues: an auction, a school, a fair, a magazine, a studio and finally a huge art show. She discusses the modern art scene and helped me understand why I have trouble liking so much modern art. Two quotes from the book will explain what I mean:“Art used to embody something meaningful enough to be relevant beyond the time in which it was made, but collectors today are attracted to art that ‘holds up a mirror to our times’ and are two impatient to hang on to a work long enough to see if it contains any “timeless’ rewards” “I explored another word: Creativity. The students wrinkled their noses in disgust. ‘Creative is definitely a dirty word.’ You would not want to say it in Post-Studio. People would gag! It’s almost as embarrassing as beautiful or sublime or masterpiece.” For these students, creativity was a ‘lovey-dovey cliché used by people who are not professionally involved with art.”
    • 3/5
      Well written, and informative, but surprisingly boring.
    • 4/5
      Entertaining enough, but the author's claim for it as a work of "ethnography" seem to be a considerable over claim. Perhaps she's learnt from all the dealers she's been mingling with! In fact it reads like a series of magazine articles, which is probably what it was. The collectors, critics, curators and assorted other glitterati are civil to Thornton, don't seem to mind her hanging about (perhaps because, as mentioned in Chapter 1, they think she's an important collector's girlfriend) and answer her questions politely if somewhat superficially. Still, I enjoyed the piece on the Turner Prize - having just seen one of Phil Collins (not that one!) pieces made it particularly interesting. And also the piece on the CalArts "Crit" - mind boggling in its pretensiousness. Recommended as an entertainment, but don't take it too seriously
    • 3/5
      Good to read for sure. Thornton's style is entertaining... if you like gossips about the "high" art world... If like me, you had the chance to experience the everyday concerns of a "normal" gallery or do not live in New-York or London, you will feel like reading Cosmopolitan.Do not be mistaken though, I repeat, this book remains entertaining.
    • 4/5
      An insider's account of 7 days (spanning several years) examining different aspects of contemporary art. Provides an interesting and enlightening look at how artists, curators, collectors, critics and dealers intermingle to influence--both positively and negatively--the production, display and sale of modern art pieces priced at millions of dollars. While I enjoyed the book very much, I would have liked to hear a bit more from the actual artists in addition to all the exposure given to the galleries, auction houses, international fairs, etc. I definitely recommend this to any art major, up and coming artist or potential collector.
    • 4/5
      When I read books like this one, I sigh with relief that I am a humble librarian, completely unconcerned with the business aspects of the world that seem to have permeated our whole society, even, it seems, the art world. Thornton visits seven icons of the art world, and devotes a chapter of her book to each. It is a very complex world. I had the picture of the artist working diligently in his studio, oblivious of the demands of the world. That is not the picture Thornton presents. Instead, she shatters my every illusion of the art world, including its aloofness from the world, its isolation from workaday worries about money, its purity. I know several artists who need to read this book.
    • 4/5
      This is a immersive walk through all levels of the world of high-end contemporary art. Its major flaw is that it accepts the stories of the protagonists for the most part uncritically. Part of this seems to be the author's payment for access, especially for her contacts at Artforum magazine. The book also suffers from her tendency to ask cliche questions, such as "what is art?", and then quote the formulaic answers verbatim. She doesn't seem to push for interesting answers beyond the formulas. (In one case, she remarks that the interviewee is writing emails on his BlackBerry as he answers her questions, and it is completely believable.) It is missing a chapters focused on the dealers, although it does have a chapter on Art Basel. The $12 million-dollar stuffed shark gives a much better story of what drives the art market, especially the branding and the economics. This book complements that one well.
    • 4/5
      A quick world art tour. Favorite chapters were on Murakami and the Venice biennial. Recommend!