NEW YORK, NY.- The modern art market is a scene of frenetic activity. More people than ever before consider themselves artists, contemporary works by living artists break auction-house records weekly, and even second- or third-rate art by renowned painters and sculptors now deceased fetches astronomic prices as collectors and cash-rich arrivistes squabble for a piece of history.

The art world has become an entertainment arena, providing an often-bizarre spectacle that sweeps up artists, buyers, critics and teachers as well as journalists and other assorted hangers-on in a heady mix of luxury retailing and near-religious fervor.

This is the setting for Seven Days in the Art World, a captivating new book from journalist and ethnographer Sarah Thornton that takes an in-depth and intimate look at the dynamics and personalities of the modern art world.

Thornton breaks her deftly-paced narrative into seven sections, each set as a day spent in a key locale of the art world.

From the fast-paced and high-pressure atmosphere of a top-line auction at Christie’s in New York, where buyers and collectors posture and pay, to the creative and philosophical hotbed of the artist Takashi Murakami’s studio in Japan, Thornton takes her readers behind closed doors, into the fulminating world that bustles behind every multimillion-dollar sale, every newly-minted artist, every headline-stealing prize.

Whether she’s auditing a prestigious and intensive class for budding artists in Southern California, watching as the super-influential Turner Prize judges mull this year’s candidates in London, , accompanying the writers and editors of Artforum as they prepare yet another eccentric and agenda-setting an issue or strolling through the retail peak of the Art Basel fair in Switzerland or the international exhibition space of the Venice Biennale, Thornton’s gift for description and her careful research blend into a marvellous, deeply insightful portrait of this oft-hidden world.

Based on more than 250 interviews over four years of experience in and around the art milieu as a “participant observer,” Thornton’s Seven Days in the Art World perfectly captures the voices and rhythms of this tremendously complex, inherently subjective and economically-vibrant scene.

Art is a increasingly important part of the global economy, in part because an expensive purchase it brings with it instant status and media recognition, and in part because many works cross borders with ease, avoiding the linguistic barriers that make commerce in word-based cultural artefacts more difficult. The rise of the auction houses and a vibrant secondary market for art has prompted a relatively recent notion that art is also a good investment, easily resold at a higher price if desired.

Seven Days in the Art World is the definite guide to how this strange and fascinating world works, who makes it move and how artists, dealers, critics, curators, collectors and auctioneers develop and protect their vision, integrity and credibility as they collectively create a vital space for artistic expression, experimentation and cultural progress.

Wry and informed, witty and engaging, Sarah Thornton’s smart précis of the art world’s inner workings is sure to stand as an exemplar of the ethnographic form, an entertaining and revelatory work that is sure to change how readers look at contemporary culture and its many boosters.