"Seven Days in the Art World" By Sarah Thornton

For anyone interested in the Contemporary Art World this is the book for you. To call this a novel is in my opinion wrong, but in terms of accessibility it reads like one. Thornton provides access into the cryptic, closed off and at times confusing world of contemporary art. The author delivers a kind of all encompassing glimpse into this world of new age art through a multifaceted approach while writing in a non pompous and humble tone.
The book draws one in first with an intriguing cover and secondly with a promise of a view inside the inside(s) of a world most of us only come across haphazardly or by chance in the art section of a newspaper. I quote from the section labeled "The Auction": "The art world is so small and resolutely insular that it is not much affected by political problems. 'At the sales after September eleventh,' explained Juliette, 'you had absolutely no sense of the reality of the world outside. None whatsoever. I remember sitting in the sale that November and saying to Jack, 'We're going to come out of this room and the Twin Towers will be standing and everything will be good with the world." With statements like this, one can see just how hard it is to puncture the skin of this world from the outside.
To provide her insightful vison of the inner workings Thornton breaks the narrative into seven sections, as the title "Seven Days in the Art World" promises. Thornton gives her readers a visit to a number of the places where in her summation the talking points begin and to the places where dialogue becomes reality in the contemporary art world. Places like the auction houses of Sotheby's and Christie's, an infamous critique class at a contemporary art institution, the art fair(s), the Turner art prize competition, a number of art magazines, a visit to the studio's of Takashi Murakami and the series of world renowned and globe trotting Biennale(s).
These seven spheres of the art world operate separately but are so intertwined and dependent upon one another that hardly a thing can go on in one without the ripples being felt in all seven almost simultaneously.
These chapters describe the price fluctuations, pricing, and ways in which artists careers are made in an instant and destroyed in the next. Top dealers, museum curators and influential buyers become the characters in this non fiction narrative.
This book provides a good starter for anyone who wants an in to the inside, at least on paper. I think that like with many spheres of contemporary society that the only way to really get inside this world is to become a part of it in the flesh.