“Most of the art world isn’t bullshit.” So says Sarah Thornton, and I think we would agree. “We” are 25-30 art world inclusives grouped around Thornton, and MoCA bookstore owner Dagny Corcoran, at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood. Thornton is launching a book five years in the making. Seven Days in the Art World chronicles what will be known as the “boom times” of the early oughts. Its seven event-driven chapters cover a Christies contemporary art auction; an MFA crit class with professor Michael Asher at CalArts; Art Basel; The Turner Prize; a day at Artforum; a studio visit with Takashi Murakami in preparation for his retrospective; and the Venice Biennale.
Thornton is considered an “art-outsider” by many, which is likely why her book’s emphasis on the art world’s moneyed elite fueled the reading’s discussion. As one young attendee pointed out, there was no room in her chapters for non-profit spaces, collectives or the grass roots side of art. Instead, she has trained her focus on art world monoliths: a prestigious auction house and fair; studio visits with an artist who holds an ongoing contract with Louis Vuitton — even the criticism chapter is set at an institution which, like all private art schools, charges debt-inducingly high tuition. In other words, the elements of the art world most often described as “bullshit.”
We at the MoCA bookstore refuse to believe this and, redeemingly, Thornton does, too. She began writing this book with a love and fascination with contemporary art. She examined the Events (with a capital E): the Biennale, Basel and the Turner Prize. When asked about her characters, she admits an ambivalence toward them as people but a love for them as characters. The art world is often condemned as esoteric, but ultimately it is a complex system, one that legitimizes the lofty intellectual ambitions of art-making, art-writing, art-exhibiting and lastly, the art market.
The reviews for Seven Days are all glowing but one. A writer for the the Scotsman says “…Seven Days probably lacks the moral outrage one might expect from a civilian confronted with a world of arcane ritual, shifting rules, and obscene wealth.” This may be true, but I doubt the writer at the Scotsman or any other reader of this book will be a true outsider. Thornton acknowledged in the discussion that artists break into mainstream news media only through record auction prices, scandal or death. I hope for her sake that Seven Days breaks in without suffering the latter.
