Sarah Thornton has a degree in cultural sociology, and this book is an exploration of the art culture, based on observations and interviews over a period of five years. She has written for the New Yorker magazine and art publications such as Artforum, and we get the full benefit of her insider’s point of view. Thornton shows us an art auction in New York City, a graduate school art class in southern California, an art show in Basel, Switzerland, a Venice Biennale, and spends time on the premises of an art magazine in New York City and of an artist’s workplaces in Japan. We also get acquainted with the contenders for the 2006 Turner Prize, awarded each year by the Tate National Gallery of Great Britain. The book covers a lot of ground, and appears to be a good representation of what was going on just a few years ago, when the art boom was at its height. We meet collectors who are interested in art, but perhaps more interested in making money by trading in art objects. All of the controversy surrounding this “invasion” of art by the marketplace is aired, and the book offers an interesting note by its choice of artist to visit, Takashi Murakami. This artist included a boutique of his company’s wares as part of an exhibition of his work at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Murakami, in a sense, has solved the problem of art expression versus profit by allowing the popular culture to affect what he creates. Speaking in his (not quite fluent) English, he says: “I change my direction or continue in same direction by seeing people’s reaction.”
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