Seven days in the Art World

  • Seven days in the art world, Sarah Thorton

Get to know the cogs that make the Art World wheel turn. Learn what makes an artist famous and how the price for an art work is set.

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What is it about ?

In this book, author Sarah Thornton lays naked the Art World.

Each of her seven chapters, one for each day, makes you discover one of the cogs that make the Art World wheel turn.

In turn, Thornton will take you to an auction house in New York, the Art Basel Fair, the Venice Biennale, a press house (Artforum), an artist’s studio (Murakami’s), a critique session in an art school (in L.A.) and a prize (in London).

She dissects all the mechanisms, helping us to understand what makes an artist famous and how the price for an art work is set.

Though this is not a new book, it is a must-read.

 

The Author

Sarah Thornton holds a BA in art history and a PhD in sociology. She is former Chief Writer on Contemporary Art for the Economist and has written for many publications such as Artforum, the New Yorker, the Guardian…

She is also the author of “33 artists in 3 acts,” which is currently on my reading list (more on this later).

 

What I particularly liked about the book

This is a non-fiction book that reads like a novel.

The author uses the pretext of one particular day in the life of a professional (an artist, a magazine publisher, an auctioneer…) to depict that whole branch of the trade.

The book is lively, riveting and, at the same time, deeply researched and informative.

It is a rare book that takes you behind the scenes of – let’s call it what it has become even though it seems to be a dirty word – an industry. This kind of book should be available on other trades, too, as a resource for anyone who thinks of making a career in the field.


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