Seven Days in the Art World

New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2009. xix, 287 pages, illustrations; 21 cm. Good+. Tight, clean copy. Browning. CONTENTS: The auction; The crit; The fair; The prize; The magazine; The studio visit; The biennale. "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 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." - Publisher.. Paperback. Very Good. 8vo.