The beauty of being a librarian is that sometimes I stumble across a book that I did not know that I wanted to read, which was the case when re-shelving a display led me to Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton. I was immediately captured by the brief synopsis on the back of the book, “A fly-on-the-wall account of the smart and strange subcultures that make, trade, curate, collect, and hype contemporary art.” The publisher promises the book to be a heavily researched account that pieces together hours of observation and more than 250 insider interviews, and Thornton claims, in her introduction, that as a researcher she is like a “cat on the prowl…curious and interactive but not threatening. Occasionally intrusive, but easily ignored.”
Much like a cat that preens and prunes meticulously, Thornton neatly organizes her ethnography into seven chapters that represents seven different days and seven different aspects of the contemporary art world: an auction (at Christie’s New York), an art school “crit” (at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia), an art fair (Art Basel), an artist’s studio (belonging to Japanese artist Takashi Murakami), a prize (Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize), a magazine (Artforum) and a biennale (Venice).
Although she intends for the seven chapters to delve deep into the contemporary art world, she provides a surface account of a bizarre world filled with a plethora of air-kissing, trite gossip, a strong sense of self-importance and way too much disposable income that is used to sway the art markets with little regard for aesthetics. Throughout her investigative journey, Thornton follows two different but intersecting paths – money and art. By alternating chapters between the power-players with inflamed egos who buy the art and the progressive artists with inflamed egos who make art, Thornton attempts to show the dynamics and tension between art making, art speculation and art purchasing. But what she gives us is an uneven portrait of the art world with little insight into why someone buys art, what makes one type of art favored over another type, why some startling, innovative contemporary artists are effectively ignored by critics and collectors, and what happens to art works once they are devoured by the status seeking nouveau-riche.
Perhaps Thornton begins her investigation seeking these answers but somewhere in her journey, Thornton loses her resolve, her journalistic verve, her investigative determination, her point-of view and merely becomes a puppet for powerful collectors, curators, critics, dealers, and auctioneers. The chapters on the Christie’s auction, the Art Basel Fair and the Venice Biennale read like a diary of a high school trumpet player who has a crush on the star quarterback and just got befriended by manipulative cheerleaders who have ulterior motives. Thornton becomes so consumed in the universe of money that she fills these chapters with pompous (albeit unwittingly funny) quotes and miniscule, tedious details, making her appear as a gossipy braggart instead of a reporter. Blinded by a whirlwind of glamour and glitz, she feels compelled to share the minutia with her readers with paragraphs such as:
“Back at Cipriani, a British collecting couple are having a dip. He floats; she performs a regal head-up breaststroke. She tells me, in the nicest way, that she finds it irritating when “sporty” Americans insist on pounding up and down the pool. I tell her I am Canadian and she quickly commends this year’s Canadian pavilion as “the best since 2001.” This is Thornton’s general theme: Rich people buy art and too much of this book is devoted to buyers who do not know anything about what they are buying or even why they are buying it. Thornton remains unperturbed by all the gold-lined ignorance and fails to undercover the hypocrisy and artifice of it all. It was no surprise that in her acknowledgements, she admits to allowing certain interviewees to read and make corrections to her drafts; she can’t be an informant if she is going nark on herself. But clearly, she does not want her love affair with the art world to end badly.
In fact, the only art world players who do not seduce her are the artists. Either she does not find artists as sexy as art buyers or she remembers that she is a reporter in their presence. In the chapters about the art school “crit” at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Japanese artist Takashi Murakami’s art studio and Britain’s prestigious Turner Prize, Thornton keeps her distance and allows their dramas to unfold naturally. She fastidiously records a smug MFA student saying “Creative is definitely a dirty word….It’s almost as embarrassing as beautiful, sublime, or masterpiece.” And reveals pop-art superstar Murakami ruminating about his idol Warhol, “I am jealous of Warhol. I’m always asking my production team, ‘Warhol was able to create such an easy painting life, why [is]our work so complicated?’ But, the history knows! My weak point is my oriental background.” Thornton does not shy away from revealing artists’ flaws, foibles and eccentricities.
Artistic eccentricities and idiosyncrasies run rampant in Thornton’s chapter on the Turner Prize 2006, which would have made an outstanding standalone essay in an art periodical with its suspense, humor, tension, and rawness. As she introduces the four nominees to her audience, she reveals two artists to be down-to earth and accessible (Phil Collins, a video artist and Mark Titchner who works in different mediums) and portrays the two female artists, sculptor Rebecca Warren and painter Tomma Abts, as media-phobic, self-absorbed prima donnas. Thornton’s interactions with the artists intermixed with the antics of Nick Serota, director of the Tate; the appearance of Yoko Ono as the prize presenter; and, the tempers and temperaments of the jury makes for an entertaining tale. Sadly, the strength of this chapter is not echoed anywhere else in Thornton’s work.
If the chapter on the Turner prize is the Thornton’s strongest than the chapter that examines Artforum is undeniably the weakest. I must confess after being bored by all the rich people bidding on art at Christie’s in Chapter One, I jumped forward to Chapter Five, The Magazine. Admittedly, the chapter on Artforum contributed greatly to me checking out this book. As a person who loves art and also writes, I probably have fantasized a time or two about being published in Artforum, which Thornton describes as “a trade magazine with crossover cachet and an institution with controversial clout.” She argues that “Artforum is to art what Vogue is to fashion and Rolling Stone was to rock and roll.” Her one-line assessment holds the truth, but she fails to reaffirm the sentiment in the rest of the chapter.
Thornton’s investigation of Artforum is her opportunity to reveal the big reveal; spill the big secrets that give insight into the currents and waves that move and shape the art world. She does not do more than obsess over the writers’ clothes , “Dressed like a dandy in a jacket, vest and tie of remarkably well coordinated plaids… “ and “Dressed entirely in black, with a hairless head and solemn manner “ and “Bright-eyed, compact, clad in a vermillion suit” as well as what the staffers eat “…Thai noodles out cardboard take boxes .“ This chapter is made up of polemical tidbits, guarded explanations and rehashed common knowledge. Her time at Artforum reveals nothing revolutionary or even newsworthy other than she had to trade writing for Artforum’s online magazine in return for having access to their offices. Once again Thornton tosses out her objectivity for acceptance from the insiders.
Thornton’s conversion from outsider to insider in her Seven Days in the Art World, made me remember my two days in art world and my conversion from an outsider who desperately wanted to be an insider to an outsider who discovered insiders are bunch of elitists with expensive shoes and no taste. As a commission-only sales assistant at a small-time art gallery in downtown Denver, located beside an adult novelty shop and across the street from two x-rated theatres, I was forced to push overpriced subpar artwork to people looking for the perfect accessory to match their couch. In theory, the idea of working in a room covered in art is as great working in a building filled with books. But unlike the library where my help is appreciated and my education is respected, patrons of the art gallery felt compelled to flash their money and seemed more annoyed than appreciative of any art knowledge that I attempted to share. Knowing how much insurance to buy for their art work was far more important than knowing about the influences present in the work. I did not have the stomach to mix my love of art with other’s people’s money, so I quickly bailed without a two-week notice and started working in more artful, kinder, gentler profession—bill collecting. Having someone call me “a skank” for asking them to make a payment on their past due Discover credit card bill was far less demoralizing than being asked to call an artist to see if he could re-do a painting in hues of pink and burgundy that would be better suited for the client's bedroom.
Although my foray in the art world was brief and disconcerting, my love of art remained unscathed. So it is with sadness and disappointment , I return Seven Days in the Art World to the shelf. But, I still hope that one day I will walk out of the library with the book that truly tells me how and why the art world spins.
