Seven days in the art world / Sarah Thornton.

Author: Thornton, Sarah.

Edition: 1st ed.

Publisher: New York : W.W. Norton, c2008.

ISBN: 1847080375 (hbk.)
039306722X (hardcover)
9780393067224 (hardcover)
9781847080370 (hbk.)

Description: xix, 274 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.

Subject: Art Exhibitions.
Art Competitions.
Art auctions.
Art criticism.
Art Marketing.

Contents: The auction -- The crit -- The fair -- The prize -- The magazine -- The studio visit -- The biennale.

Summary: 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.