Seven Days In The Art World

A fly-on-the-wall account of the smart and strange subcultures that make, trade, curate, collect, and hype contemporary art.
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

Seven Days in the Art World

Arts & Photography

THORNTON, Sarah

History & Criticism

W.W.Norton&Company

This compelling narrative goes behind the scenes with the world’s most important living artists to humanize and demystify contemporary art.
The best-selling author of Seven Days in the Art World now tells the story of the artists themselves―how they move through the world, command credibility, and create iconic works.
33 Artists in 3 Acts offers unprecedented access to a dazzling range of artists, from international superstars to unheralded art teachers. Sarah Thornton's beautifully paced, fly-on-the-wall narratives include visits with Ai Weiwei before and after his imprisonment and Jeff Koons as he woos new customers in London, Frankfurt, and Abu Dhabi. Thornton meets Yayoi Kusama in her studio around the corner from the Tokyo asylum that she calls home. She snoops in Cindy Sherman’s closet, hears about Andrea Fraser’s psychotherapist, and spends quality time with Laurie Simmons, Carroll Dunham, and their daughters Lena and Grace.
Through these intimate scenes, 33 Artists in 3 Acts explores what it means to be a real artist in the real world. Divided into three cinematic "acts"―politics, kinship, and craft―it investigates artists' psyches, personas, politics, and social networks. Witnessing their crises and triumphs, Thornton turns a wry, analytical eye on their different answers to the question "What is an artist?"
33 Artists in 3 Acts reveals the habits and attributes of successful artists, offering insight into the way these driven and inventive people play their game. In a time when more and more artists oversee the production of their work, rather than make it themselves, Thornton shows how an artist’s radical vision and personal confidence can create audiences for their work, and examines the elevated role that artists occupy as essential figures in our culture. 44 illustrations, 3 maps

33 Artists in 3 Acts

"An indelible portrait of a peculiar society." ―Vogue
Sarah Thornton's vivid ethnography―an international hit, now available in twenty translations―reveals the inner workings of the sophisticated subcultures that make up the contemporary art world. In a series of day-in-the-life narratives set in New York, Los Angeles, London, Basel, Venice, and Tokyo, Seven Days in the Art World explores the dynamics of creativity, taste, status, money, and the search for meaning in life. 8 illustrations

After years of painful biopsies, best-selling author Sarah Thornton made the difficult decision to have a double mastectomy. But, after her reconstructive surgery, she was perplexed: What had she lost and gained? An experienced sleuth, she resolved to venture behind the scenes to uncover the social and cultural significance of breasts. Riotous and galvanizing, Tits Up excavates the diverse truths of mammary glands from the strip club to the operating room, from the nation's oldest human milk bank to the fit rooms of bra designers. Thornton draws insights from plastic surgeons, lactation consultants, body-positive witches, lingerie models, and "free the nipple" activists to explore the status of breasts as emblems of femininity. She examines how women's chests have become a billion-dollar business, as well as a staging ground for debates about race, class, gender, and desire. Everywhere she turns, Thornton encounters chauvinist myths about this elemental body part that quietly justify deficits in women's bodily autonomy and endorse shortfalls in their political status. Blending sociology, memoir, and reportage with refreshing optimism and wit, Thornton has one overriding ambition--to liberate breasts from centuries of patriarchal prejudice.

Tits Up: What Sex Workers, Milk Bankers, Plastic Surgeons, Bra Designers, and Witches Tell Us about Breasts

Biographies & Memoirs

Community & Culture

Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital

Professionals & Academics

Polity Press

This book is a highly innovative contribution to the study of popular culture. Focusing on the youth cultures that revolve around dance clubs and raves, Sarah Thornton highlights the values of authenticity and hipness and explores the complex hierarchies that emerge within the domain of popular culture. Using a rich combination of methods, Thornton paints a picture of club cultures as `taste cultures` brought together by micro-media (like flyers and listings), transformed into self-conscious `subcultures` by niche media (like the music and style press), and sometimes recast as `movements` with the aid of mass media (like tabloid newspaper front pages). She also analyses the changing status of the medium of recording, from a marginal second-class entertainment in the 1950s to the much celebrated, dominant form of clubs and raves in the 1990s. Drawing from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Thornton coins the term `subcultural capital` to make sense of the distinctions made by `cool` youth, paying particular attention to their disparagement of the `mainstream` against which they measure their alternative cultural worth. Well illustrated with case studies, very readable and theoretically innovative, "Club Cultures" will become established as a key text in cultural and media studies and in the sociology of culture.

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Polity

Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital (Music / Culture)

Focusing on youth cultures that revolve around dance clubs and raves in Great Britain and the U.S., Sarah Thornton highlights the values of authenticity and hipness and explores the complex hierarchies that emerge within the domain of popular culture. She portrays club cultures as "taste cultures" brought together by micro-media like flyers and listings, transformed into self-conscious "subcultures" by such niche media as the music and style press, and sometimes recast as "movements" with the aid of such mass media as tabloid newspaper front pages. She also traces changes in the recording medium from a marginal entertainment in the 50s to the clubs and raves of the 90s.Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Thornton coins the term "subcultural capital" to make sense of distinctions made by "cool" youth, noting particularly their disparagement of the "mainstream" against which they measure their alternative cultural worth. Well supported with case studies, readable, and innovative, Club Cultures will become a key text in cultural and media studies and in the sociology of culture.

Music

Wesleyan University Press

Focusing on youth cultures that revolve around dance clubs and raves in Great Britain and the U.S., Sarah Thornton highlights the values of authenticity and hipness and explores the complex hierarchies that emerge within the domain of popular culture. She portrays club cultures as "taste cultures" brought together by micro-media like flyers and listings, transformed into self-conscious "subcultures" by such niche media as the music and style press, and sometimes recast as "movements" with the aid of such mass media as tabloid newspaper front pages. She also traces changes in the recording medium from a marginal entertainment in the 50s to the clubs and raves of the 90s. Drawing on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Thornton coins the term "subcultural capital" to make sense of distinctions made by "cool" youth, noting particularly their disparagement of the "mainstream" against which they measure their alternative cultural worth. Well supported with case studies, readable, and innovative, Club Cultures will become a key text in cultural and media studies and in the sociology of culture.

Tits Up: The Top Half of Women's Liberation

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by THORNTON, Sarah. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by THORNTON, Sarah

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by THORNTON, Sarah. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Seven Days in the Art World

33 Artists in 3 Acts

Seven Days in the Art World

33 Artists in 3 Acts

Tits Up: What Sex Workers, Milk Bankers, Plastic Surgeons, Bra Designers, and Witches Tell Us about Breasts

Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital

Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital

Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital (Music / Culture)

Club Cultures: Music, Media, and Subcultural Capital (Music / Culture)

Tits Up: The Top Half of Women's Liberation