A review by alexhouston
Seven Days in the Art World by Sarah Thornton

4.0

The snark is sometimes slathered a bit too thick but it’s never not delicious. Shades of great empire-in-decline essayists abound (Didion’s poker faced prose is a clear template) but the unflinching ethnographic attention to this one odd corner of production and consumption sets this apart from everyone else’s dabbles. Chapters on the Christies auction, the art school critique, and the Venice biennale are especially abundant in absurdities, enough to almost get a glimpse the grounding of a more grounded critique of the whole — ie one that grapples with Capital, not just capital. A fine way to start what promises to be an abundantly absurd and incompletely critiqued year.