Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
A field guide to the nomadic tribes of the contemporary art world. The book was reported and written in a heated market, but it is poised to endure as a work of sociology.Entertaining and lucid...rigorous, precise reportage.[An] intelligently written . . . refreshingly open-minded exploration.The best book yet written about the modern-art boom . . . a vivid, wittily written . . . Robert Altmanesque panorama.A terrific book--detailed, gossipy, and insightful. . . . By the end of the book, you almost understand how [Steve] Cohen could shell out $8 million for a rotting 14-foot shark pickled in formaldehyde.A one-stop tutorial on an often insular subculture . . . light-hearted but sociologically acute.An exhaustively researched and intelligently written. . . refreshingly open-minded exploration.Finely wrought and thoroughly researched'[with] an ingenious structure' and spot-on characterizations'the author draws readers into the experience' [with her] infectious curiosity and meticulous reporting. -- Annie Buckley
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'The contemporary art world is a loose network of overlapping subcultures held together by a belief in art," writes Thornton, and we are fortunate that she was able to penetrate all of these opaque, protected, and often secretive groups. -- Barbara Fisher
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" " New York Times Book Review
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" " Sunday Times [London]
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" " Leslie Camhi
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" " Vogue
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"[An] intelligently written . . . refreshingly open-minded exploration." Peter Aspden Financial Times
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"A terrific book--detailed, gossipy, and insightful. . . . By the end of the book, you almost understand how [Steve] Cohen could shell out $8 million for a rotting 14-foot shark pickled in formaldehyde." Washington Post
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"A one-stop tutorial on an often insular subculture . . . light-hearted but sociologically acute." BusinessWeek
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"Finely wrought and thoroughly researched...[with] an ingenious structure... and spot-on characterizations...the author draws readers into the experience... [with her] infectious curiosity and meticulous reporting." Time
Synopsis
Named one of the best art books of 2008 by and [London]: "An indelible portrait of a peculiar society."--
Synopsis
'An indelible portrait of a peculiar society."Vogue
Synopsis
Sarah Thornton's vivid ethnography--an international hit, now available in fifteen translations--reveals the inner workings of the sophisticated subcultures that make up the contemporary art world. In a series of day-in-the-life narratives set in New York, Los Angeles, London, Basel, Venice, and Tokyo, ? explores the dynamics of creativity, taste, status, money, and the search for meaning in life.
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About the Author
Sarah Thornton is a freelance writer who contributes to The New Yorker, BBC-TV, and Artforum.com. She has degrees in art history and sociology. She lives in London.