Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World is a witty series of non-fiction narratives, which reveal the inner workings of the institutions that contribute to an artist’s place in art history. The book is an international hit, available in eleven languages.
Thornton writes regularly about contemporary art for The Economist.
Reviews and Reactions
“Sarah Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World is probably the most interesting book I’ve read this year. It reveals seven different facets of the contemporary art world, with all its attendant pretentiousness and commercial manipulation.” Alexander McCall Smith, The Scotsman
“Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton is a field guide to the nomadic tribes of the contemporary art world. The book was reported and written in a heated market, but it is poised to endure as a work of sociology… Where others would be content to gawk and gossip, she pushes her well-chosen subjects to explore the questions ‘What is an artist?’ and ‘What makes a work of art great?’” The New York Times
“The best book yet written about the modern-art boom… an excellent, vivid, wittily written book… a Robert Altmanesque panorama of… the most important cultural phenomenon of the last ten years….” The Sunday Times (London)
“What a treat. An astute writer haunts the art world and reports it in great detail – the artists and the bullshitters, the millionaires, the hangers on. You learn a lot.” The London Evening Standard.
“Seven Days should be welcomed as a breakthrough contribution to the ethnography of contemporary culture: a close to definitive glimpse, through brilliant polished windows, at one of the most revealing examples of a genuinely global social milieu. With rigour and subtlety, Thornton displays what qualitative sociology can do at its best: listen, observe and learn, while paying meticulous attention to the life-worlds of research subjects themselves.” Professor Adrian Favell, Art-It
Seven Days in the Art World is an “exhaustively researched and intelligently written… refreshingly open-minded exploration.” Washington Post
“Thornton gives us a one-stop tutorial on an often insular subculture… Seven Days is light-hearted but sociologically acute, allowing us to both laugh at and empathize with those for whom ‘contemporary art has become a kind of alternative religion.’” Time Magazine
“This is an entertaining and lucid account of the mysterious ways of contemporary art… [Thornton] does well to resist the temptation to draw any glib, overarching conclusions. There is more than enough in her rigorous, precise reportage… for the reader to make his or her own connections.” Financial Times
“Finely wrought and thoroughly researched… [with] an ingenious structure… and spot-on characterizations… the author draws readers into the experience… [with her] infectious curiosity and meticulous reporting.” Artweek
Recent Publications and Events
- Thornton did a slide show about the Warhol market: http://audiovideo.economist.com/?fr_story=cd5aa7c48fbf1acebf99f5aed2390221086e48c7&rf=bm 2009-12-02
- Thornton wrote "New or Second Hand" for The Economist: http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14941173 2009-12-01
- Thornton wrote about the Jeff Koons market in The Economist: http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14941205 2009-11-29
- Sarah Thornton in The Economist on "How to make art history" http://www.economist.com/specialreports/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14941197 2009-11-28
- Sarah Thornton on "Andy Warhol: The bellwether of the art market" http://bit.ly/8PdqWG 2009-11-27
- More updates...
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“Seven Days in the Art World… seems destined to outlive its moment… Thornton offers an indelible portrait of a peculiar society, simultaneously cutthroat and curious… glamorous yet filled with people who would have been unpopular in high school.” Vogue
Seven Days in the Art World “will survive as a hard-thinking but high-spirited memorial… Thornton brings to light the bizarre machinery that keeps studio showbiz on the road, and in the headlines.” The Independent (“20 Best Books of the Year”)
“It’s like having your own spy in the art world. Thornton parachutes the reader into the fascinating nitty gritty of how it all works.” Alan Yentob, Creative Director, BBC.
A “brilliantly readable and wonderful and didactic-without-lecturing book.” Flavorwire
“A terrific book—detailed, gossipy, and insightful… By the end of the book, you almost understand how [Steve] Cohen could shell out $8 million for a rotting 14-foot shark pickled in formaldehyde…” BusinessWeek
“Underneath [the book's] glossy surface lurks a sociologist’s concern for institutional narratives as well as the ethnographer’s conviction that entire social structures can be apprehended in seemingly frivolous patterns of speech or dress.” ArtWorldSalon.com
“Thornton has performed the admirable service of preserving the extreme social comedy of the global art world, circa 2007, for historians of the future.” Bloomberg
“Thornton captures the essence, appeal, complexity and the mass of contradiction that permeates the rarefied art world, and often fascinates outsiders.” Reuters
“Thornton is a smart and savvy guide with a keen understanding of the subtle power dynamics that animate each of these interconnected milieus.” The International Herald Tribune
“Thornton [is] an art historian and sociologist with moxie and a brilliant game plan. . . . An astute observer and stimulating storyteller whose crisp sentences convey a wealth of information… her uniquely clarifying dispatches from the art front glimmer with high-definition profiles of artists, dealers, critics, and collectors, and grapple with the paradoxes inherent in the transformation of creativity into commodity.” Booklist
