This is a brave book, written fluidly, sometimes almost in torrents, about what Rachel Spence calls 'Planet Art'. He gives a compelling account of the "global expansion that, over the past half century, and greatly accelerated since the turn of the millennium, has driven the strategies of museums, auction houses, private galleries and art fairs." It's always personal and thought-provoking and sometimes very entertaining. It will be a compelling read for anyone interested in contemporary art and where it is going. I have rarely read a book in which the thinking is so transparent. Towards the end, Spence writes: โReaders will have noticed that in this last chapter I have become less attached to the term Planetary Art. While writing this book, I reminded myself that the sector is not an airtight bubble isolated from its environment.'
What comes through at all times are the author's persistent doubts. "We, at Planet Art and beyond, have let things go very wrong, at some point," he writes. He sees cracks everywhere in the shiny facade. In March 2022, he watched chauffeur-driven limousines disembark fur-wrapped (mostly white) passengers at New York's Whitney Museum, while museum workers (mostly Black) shivered in the cold on strike outside. (I hope you'll forgive me for mentioning here that I wrote at length in my 2002 book The Poetic Museum about the need for museum staff to reflect the society they serve).
Spence writes with authority about the relationship between art and money. It offers a fascinating account of the multimillion-dollar payments made by the United Arab Emirates to the French government to attach the Louvre's name (for a limited period only) to a museum development on an island called Saadiyat (meaning "Happiness").
