I’m currently reading Seven Days in the Art World, by Sarah Thornton. It’s very much a fly-on-the-wall account that’s the result of five years of research, interviews and participation in some of the wider art world’s less accessible places and people. The ‘seven days’ in the title refers to how Thornton lays out the seven chapers of the book, ‘The Auction’, ‘The Crit’, ‘The Fair’, ‘The Prize’, ‘The Magazine’, ‘The Studio Visit’, and ‘The Biennale’.

I’m up to the ‘magazine’ chapter, which focuses on Artforum magazine and the people who run it. It’s interesting reading this book as an artist because I’m actively involved with a gallery and have been to art fairs, but because of some of what I’ve read here, I can look back on, say, the art fairs I’ve been to and make some connections with what was going on.

The book is something of a breezy read, but leaves a lot of food for thought for the reader, offering prolonged glimpses ‘behind the curtain’ of the machinery that runs the contemporary art world.