num_pages: 320
description: Named one of the best art books of 2008 by The New York Times and The Sunday Times [London]: An indelible portrait of a peculiar society.Vogue 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. 8 illustrations.
language: English
title: Seven Days in the Art World
publisher: W. W. Norton & Company