![]() ![]() ![]() Of that venerable publication, circulation about 60,000, Thornton extracts from some readers the confession that they simply look at the picture. The author takes us into the jury room for the Turner Prize at the Tate Gallery and inside the editorial offices at Artforum. ![]() Then to Switzerland for a massive contemporary art fair, where VIPs line up outside before the opening like nervous daddies hoping to nab his kid the newest PlayStation. He’s conducting a “crit”: a collective critique of students’ proposals and projects. She interviews an assortment of people, including artist Keith Tyson, who declares auctions to be “vulgar, in the same way that pornography is vulgar.” Next, she whisks us to California for an all-day session with artist/teacher Michael Asher. Thornton then takes us behind the scenes at a Christie’s auction where bidding for a 1963 Warhol began at $8 million dollars. High prices generate media attention media attention generates more of everything. We are more educated, she avers, more global and more affluent. After a few generic remarks about today’s art world, which she deems “polycentric” (less anchored in Paris and New York), the author considers why art has become so popular. Her narrative moves gracefully across international boundaries, cultures, languages and genres. New Yorker and contributor Thornton ( Club Cultures, 1996) takes a wide-angle view of art as creation-but also as production, marketing, personality and mega-profit. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |