Book Review 1: Seven Days In The Art World
In the mysterious, capricious and status-obsessed art market, six distinct insiders—artists, dealers, curators, critics, collectors and auction-house experts—are keeping dynamic balance with each other and being a relatively excluded group that is fraught with unknown secrets. As a non-fiction book that to some extent, pry into the secrets in art market, Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World offers up a tale of what happens at the height of a cultural moment and the exuberance of an over-expand market. Through my reading, there are several aspects I take away from the book, which make it outstanding and also result to some limitations.
Structure and language In the book Seven Days in the Art World, Thornton dished up seven different " day-in-the-life" case studies in the contemporary art world: a Christie 's auction, art school seminar at Cal Arts, a day at Artforum, a visit to Takashi Murakami 's studio, the Art Fair in Basel, and the Turner Prize. She cleverly divided the book into these seven day-in-the-life chapters and also captured the subtle power dynamics that activate each of these …show more content…
In the one hand, most of the people Thornton interviewed were inevitably circumspect about what they say to her. For instance, the Rubells family who has a twenty-seven-room museum to display their family collections didn’t let her shadow them through Art Basel: “That’s like asking to come into our bedroom.” Same in this chapter, Jeff Poe, a dealer of Blum & Poe gallery, refused to tell Thornton who finally brought that Takashi Murakami’s exquisitely crafted three-panel painting that captured full attention in the fair. On the other hand, as a member of the art world, Thornton keeps close relationship with the art community, which might result to get bogged down in subjectivity and fact
In the mysterious, capricious and status-obsessed art market, six distinct insiders—artists, dealers, curators, critics, collectors and auction-house experts—are keeping dynamic balance with each other and being a relatively excluded group that is fraught with unknown secrets. As a non-fiction book that to some extent, pry into the secrets in art market, Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World offers up a tale of what happens at the height of a cultural moment and the exuberance of an over-expand market. Through my reading, there are several aspects I take away from the book, which make it outstanding and also result to some limitations.
Structure and language In the book Seven Days in the Art World, Thornton dished up seven different " day-in-the-life" case studies in the contemporary art world: a Christie 's auction, art school seminar at Cal Arts, a day at Artforum, a visit to Takashi Murakami 's studio, the Art Fair in Basel, and the Turner Prize. She cleverly divided the book into these seven day-in-the-life chapters and also captured the subtle power dynamics that activate each of these …show more content…
In the one hand, most of the people Thornton interviewed were inevitably circumspect about what they say to her. For instance, the Rubells family who has a twenty-seven-room museum to display their family collections didn’t let her shadow them through Art Basel: “That’s like asking to come into our bedroom.” Same in this chapter, Jeff Poe, a dealer of Blum & Poe gallery, refused to tell Thornton who finally brought that Takashi Murakami’s exquisitely crafted three-panel painting that captured full attention in the fair. On the other hand, as a member of the art world, Thornton keeps close relationship with the art community, which might result to get bogged down in subjectivity and fact