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Book Reviews
Art as future-speak
SEVEN DAYS IN THE ART WORLD
By Sarah Thornton
256 pp. W.W. Norton $24.95
Reviewed by Kathy Highcove
Seven Days in the Art World is a book-sized definition of the emergent art culture. Sarah Thornton, art historian and writer, defines this culture in her preface:
The art world is a sphere where many people don’t just work but reside full-time. It’s a ‘symbolic community’ where people swap thoughts and where cultural worth is debated rather than determined by brute wealth.
Brute wealth makes forays into the emergent art culture, to be sure. The first “day” is spent in the rarefied atmosphere of Christie’s auction house. Like a coterie of courtiers, the mega-rich gather to bid on art works that will, they hope, enhance a gallery or enlarge a private collection. Thornton witnesses the nod, the raised finger or eyebrow, as the auctioneer works the bidding. Millions are coaxed out of the select group that values innovation not just as an investment, but as a way to satisfy an art patron’s desire to experience the newest creative product from a favorite artist.
Thornton takes us into the back rooms and private meetings of the modern art community. She’s an accepted member, and the principals readily answer her questions. The reader eavesdrops on her conversations with artists, critics, curators, and historians. She asks all: “What is an artist?” And all answer according to the way they experience art. The art student resists definitions—too threatened to define and perhaps sully their muse—but the sales people, writers, and curators know that an emerging artist is the vital center of their world. Wealthy patrons and museums need new art as addicts need their drugs. The emergent artist is the source, the catalyst of all movement in the sphere.
From the sacrosanct rooms of the super-rich patrons, Thornton finds a nursery of emergent art: Cal Arts, Los Angeles. In the sere chaparral environment of Southern California, artist and professor Michael Asher leads his art students through a 24-hour critique session—a pilgrimage of sorts. The students present their work to each other and are urged to explain their work, their inspiration. Some are prepared, others stumble through presentations, work hard to justify their work to a jury of peers. Asher guides the newbies toward the future realities of their chosen profession. His students know that a highly competitive scene awaits the successful young artist. Therefore they must learn to sell their creations, stand up to criticism, and prepare for the public’s demands on their energy.
After the visit to the classroom we travel with Thornton to Basel, Switzerland, home to the Art Fair—a large display of new art that is open only to a select group of international buyers and collectors. At the Fair, a new artist can attract an instant following of devotees and start a lucrative career.
On the fourth “day,” Thornton visits London’s Tate Museum. Every year the Tate offers a competition for the Turner Prize. The young artists invited to compete allow their work to be viewed by both the insiders and outsiders and discussed like a slab of meat on the block. Four artists make the cut, and a jury decides the winner. All of Great Britain watches the competition the way Americans watch the World Series.
The fifth stop in the emergent art community is a familiar one for Thornton, who writes for many publications and for British television. She visits Artforum, the premier publication of the international art community. To be on the cover of the publication is an endorsement of gigantic proportions. The author interviews the owner, editors, PR people, and the art critics and art historians who publish in Artforum.
My favorite chapter spotlights the artist Takishi Murakami and his art complex in Japan. Murakami hires artists to work on his creations in a factory scenario, while managing an empire of products, mementoes, and clothes that feature his product—art.
Some people admire Murakami’s commercialization, some criticize it. Thornton is neutral. I think her travels and interviews reveal an art community in constant flux. Emergent art is just that: emerging, always growing and changing form like the wild ivy on a studio wall. What is hot this year might be totally ignored in the next round of Fairs and competitions. Thornton admits a fascination with the changeable nature of emergent art.
The final chapter presents the Biennale in Venice: a huge show, reminiscent of the Olympics. The ancient Italian city sponsors this extravaganza every two years. Thornton notes that in 2007 the Asian market is beginning to seep into the display pavilions. The ivy grows eastward. The last “day” at the Biennale reminds one of a finale in a concert. All the players, the elements of the emergent art community, appear once more to remind Thornton and her readers of the complex relationships, the symbiotic nature of the art community.
Thornton covers every angle of the contemporary art community in a light conversational style that smoothly changes from reflective thought to explanation to spirited conversation with sphere inhabitants. Sometimes the detail and asides slow the flow. I found the section about the Artforum magazine to be rather tedious. The quickest section to read centered on the prolific output of artist Murakami. His commercial shrewdness complements his creative vision and sells his . . . products.
While reading this book on contemporary art I enjoyed finding the people, places, and art works online. The Web provided an extra pleasure by supplying extra illustrations and explanations. Seven Days in the Art World is instructive, yet not academic. I appreciated the view into a world I know only from museum visits and occasional news stories; now I understand much better the international art culture that “blurs the lines between work and play, local and international, the cultural and the economic.” Thornton suspects that “the sphere indicates the social world to come.” Art as future-speak. Sarah Thornton’s book is a revelation.
Kathy Highcove lives in Woodland Hills, California, where she writes and publishes mostly non-fiction—articles, interviews, and biographical essays—and continually looks for story ideas in daily events and news items. She recently began to write restaurant reviews for local publications. She finds: “Book reviews have some aspects in common with restaurant reviews—both types of writing share my experiences with a reading audience. One critique reviews food for appetite, the other highlights food for thought.”
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