The art world can be a space of wonder, beauty, bravery, connection and community. As an art critic and art historian, I’ve spent the past decade swimming in these waters. But it can also feel like a badly written joke: shaped by the 1%, populated by the shrinking middle classes, picketed by anarchists and run by unpaid interns. Perhaps “art worlds” is a better way to describe the barely overlapping spheres. It can be difficult to find the punchline among the contradictions of cleanskin wine and conspicuous consumption.
It’s this underside, riddled with friction and contradiction, which has caught the eye of two Australian authors with new books out this month: Bri Lee’s The Work and Liam Pieper’s Appreciation. So are the worlds they create for readers fact or fantasy?
