The bigger picture

Sarah Thornton. Photo / Supplied

The complicated and sensitive world of artists is explored in Sarah Thornton's new book. She talks to Stephen Jewell.

As an ethnographer, Sarah Thornton enjoys getting under the skin of different social groups. In her 1995 seminal book Club Cultures, she explored the disparate tribes of the decade's burgeoning dance music communities. However, she feels most at home in the more rarified environment of the fine art world, in which she immersed herself for Seven Days in the Art World, published eight years later.

"I'm interested in taste, cultural values and social hierarchies," she tells me over afternoon tea at Sotheby's Bond St branch in London. "The way people distinguish themselves from one another is one of the themes that runs through both books. I'm interested in how different subcultures view each other. In Club Cultures, I was interested in how British youth were all defining themselves against the mainstream to the extent I couldn't find anyone who defined themselves as mainstream unless they were pre-teens who didn't go out to dance clubs."

In Seven Days in the Art World, Thornton focuses on several distinct aspects of the art community, beginning with the high-price bidders at Christie's exclusive New York auction house before moving on to the prestigious Californian Institute of Art, where she watches students evaluate each others' work.

"It's quite a surreal experience when people are spending more money than you could possibly dream of on something that is two feet by three feet long," she says wryly. "It's a different reality to the artists working in the East End of London or art students at a CalArts Crit class. It's the different realities of the art world that fascinate me."

She also delves into the ruthless world of art journalism, visits the Venice Biennale and attends the Basel Art Fair.

"I very much see the art world as a set of squabbling subcultures that espouse different definitions and forms of art. One of the things that readers can pick up on if they read between the lines of the chapters is the different forms of alienation that exist, for example, between the art critics of the magazine chapter and the art students, or the auctioneers and the dealers in Basel."

The most illuminating chapter centres around the CalArts Crit class, which Thornton was invited to witness by New Zealand student Fiona Jack, now a lecturer at the Elam School of Fine Arts.

"I'd been to Los Angeles before and had done a pile of interviews about what made the LA art world tick," she recalls. "I knew that the art schools were essential, they were the hubs that really gave it its vibrancy. I'd already decided in my head that the book would be events-based so I needed to find an event. When Fiona mentioned that she was having her Crit that week, it seemed perfect."

Thornton intends to catch up with Jack when she visits the country this weekend for the Auckland Writers & Readers Festival. She is also looking forward to learning more about the New Zealand art scene.

"It interests me that people like Fiona feel the need to go to places like CalArts," she says. "But that's not uncommon in small countries, where it becomes more important to do part of your education abroad, to get that bigger picture before returning home."

Seven Days in the Art World is recommended reading at numerous art schools around the world, including Elam. "I've had some very funny moments in classes where students bring it up, which they do all the time," says Jack. "They talk specifically about the Crit chapter and the discussion about the painter but have no idea it's me."

However, not all such institutions have looked so favourably upon Thornton's theories. "I've given a few talks at art schools where I've been met with a bit of antagonism and almost been heckled by the head of painting," quips Thornton, who has met with disdain for mentioning the financial necessities of being an artist.

"The business side of the art world isn't taught in art schools because there's this ideology that artists must concentrate on their work and not worry about their career. There's this idea that if they are good enough, they will miraculously be discovered. But the artists who are successful are generally the ones who realise they can't be passive, you have to work hard. Who wants to leave their fate up to luck? Luck comes into it but you have to be smart to be in the right position at the right time."

Thornton is working on the follow-up to Seven Days in the Art World, which will focus on how to become an artist.

"I feel like I might have to write a few books about artists because they come in many types, forms and incarnations," she says. "I don't think I can make sense of them all in one book."