An Object of Beauty

Lately I have felt a little torn between my passion for art-making and art-managing (what a horrid sounding word). It can probably be credited to my sense of self-doubt as I finished art-school not really having enjoyed the last year of validating, stress-crying, and explaining to then produce what I felt was contrived and mediocre work. I have many ideas ticking but while I thought I could straddle the fence quite easily between the studio and the gallery-office I am feeling less and less confident in the studio. I have so much to learn still and the gallery work that I do is extremely interesting and at times rewarding too. The art world can be so mysterious.

I read An Object of Beauty some time ago. The book leapt out at me due to the very interesting cover and the words in the title, then the blurb on the back hooked me. At the time I thought it was going to be helpful for my thesis but looking back I think it was more relevant to my (still new) post-art school life of working in a gallery. Through the eyes of an admiring and slightly obsessed male friend the novel follows a young woman, Lacey Yeager, as she works her way up the New York art scene of the 90s. It seemed like all my interests were rolled into one that I didn’t even notice right away that Steve Martin was the author. I really enjoyed the film adaptation of Shop Girl, another literary feat of his – I knew I wasn’t going to be disappointed.

Lacey lands a job in Sotheby’s cataloguing second rate artworks, learning very quickly the ins and outs of the art market as she schmoozes her way into a private gallery working as an assistant. (We later learn the darker reasons for leaving Sotheby’s but by then we have already learned of Lacey’s flawed work ethics and forgiven her anyway). Her friend, narrator Daniel Frank does himself no favours. He comes across as a bumbling, overgrown boy who never really gets over Lacey and we, through him, watch every step Lacey takes throughout the book, but with no real big role in the story. But that is perhaps how Lacey makes him feel.

These objects of beauty that Lacey grows her world around are also objects of value. This book gives insight into the complex nature of the art world and art market without passing any strong judgement. Rightly or wrongly Lacey learns to play the art world of large deals, big trophies, and vanity. It is quite an entertaining and insightful book that details the last two decades of the art world of New York. It becomes evident Steve Martin has a deep understanding of the art market (I have since learned that he is an avid art collector himself) and while it helped me develop a strong appetite for learning more of art history and the art market I didn’t feel like I learned very much about Lacey. She was exciting to follow and at times annoyingly vain, she was a flawed character but in the end I didn’t feel any empathy for her. Maybe this is what Daniel felt, or maybe the intention of the author, either way I did still enjoy it and the battered book was finished in less than a week. Not much of a book review but there you go.

Since then I have only read some books by Murakami and I am now waiting for my local bookstore to stock A Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. I wonder if it will have the same sort of feel.

While refreshing my memory on this book I came across some interesting links:

▲ A behind the scenes view of the book cover design process.

▲ A short interview with Steve Martin about his book and a few other things. Favourite bit of the interview when referring to the arts and entertainment: "...nobody's doing it for themselves! You're doing it for an audience". So true.

Images source: Juxtapoz magazine online.