KEY POINTS:
Right on the eve of the recent financial collapse, Brit wunderkind and artist Damien Hirst auctioned off a golden calf at Christie's auction house for an astonishing sum: 10.3 million ($24.9 million). The coupling of contemporary art and the suspect world of high finance seemed complete. Trickster met fraudster. That it was a golden calf with all its imagery of idolatry, false gods and cupidity only made the sale more redolent with the symbolism of a world gone mad on greed, ugliness and ambition.
Hirst coolly received the news of the price while he was playing pool. It was a coup for him. He had done away with the need for an art gallery or dealer. He was bringing his own goods to market. He was cool, distanced, barely even making a comment.
Seven Days in the Art World is a look at this very contemporary form of madness. Sarah Thornton is a clever young woman, a British anthropologist by trade. Her earlier book was Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital and she functions as a "participant observer". This means she mixes in, takes notes, observes and brings the information back to you, the reader.
The book is broken into seven areas: the auction (Christie's), the Crit (at Cal Art), the Fair (Basel), the Prize (The Turner), The Magazine (Art Forum International), the Studio Visit (Takashi Murakami) and the Biennale (Venice). It is all top-shelf stuff and Thornton brings home the goods. She is an astute observer, whether it's the woman she assumes is young, at the Christie's auction, till she notices her claw-like hands and hair plugs or the comparison of the over-productive Warhol to real estate options: some are midtown and only so so, while others are "penthouse properties with 360-degree views".
She's a lively writer and I found myself glad of her intelligent, spirited company. She quotes a London dealer at Christie's auction. "Between you and me, everyone is so full of shit ... the chat is full of subterfuge and sleazy art world stories. It's a tableau vivant of pretentious greed."
But this book takes the terrain seriously. She does think an awful lot of contemporary art will be worthless in less than a decade, but she also believes in the business and production of art. "It's a bit like yoga. You must empty your mind and be receptive."
She can draw sharp pen pictures of people. One man is described as "a droll insomniac with a hardworking slouch". Her method, interestingly, is not unlike Justin Paton's in his best-selling How to Look at a Painting. She takes you on an art promenade, all the time whispering in your ear all sorts of things which make you feel well-informed, an insider in the "art racket".
Her sources are impeccable. Who after all could score downtime with the hyper-fashionable Japanese artist, Takashi Murakami? "An artist is a necromancer," Murakami tells Thornton, "an artist is someone who understands the border between this world and that one."
Thornton, in Seven Days, is an artist of another sort. She guides the reader through the maze of contemporary art. She is no fool but she's not a redneck either. She suspends belief and reports what she sees. She listens well and this book has all the pleasure of a high quality magazine article: spirited, informative, well-written and leaving you feeling that you have been at the centre of things, even as you close the book in the comfort of your armchair.
Book review
What: Seven days in the art world
By Sarah Thornton (Granta $39.99)
Reviewed by: Peter Wells
* Peter Wells is a writer based in Hawkes Bay.
