Enjoyable in its tour through the various scenes in the world of contemporary art - auction (Christie's), 'crit' (art school seminar involving peer feedback - California Institute of the Arts), art fair (Basel), prize (Turner), magazine (Artforum), studio (Takashi Murakami's), biennale (Venice) - and associated actors including dealers, collectors, curators, critics, auction house experts and, indeed, artists.
Explicitly takes an 'ethnographic' approach which perhaps enabled access but may also account for the somewhat lack of a point - or, more accurately, a perspective or critical view - to much of the description; also largely missing (by design, but still very noticeably) is anything much about the relevance of the qualities of the art itself. Also drags a bit in some of the latter chapters.
All up, despite fascinating topic and a sense of being grounded in the reality of what it describes, not as good as another in somewhat similar vein that I read a few years back.
Explicitly takes an 'ethnographic' approach which perhaps enabled access but may also account for the somewhat lack of a point - or, more accurately, a perspective or critical view - to much of the description; also largely missing (by design, but still very noticeably) is anything much about the relevance of the qualities of the art itself. Also drags a bit in some of the latter chapters.
All up, despite fascinating topic and a sense of being grounded in the reality of what it describes, not as good as another in somewhat similar vein that I read a few years back.
