Writer James Cahill has worked in contemporary art galleries and as a critic and art historian.
He told HENI News why, despite his latest novel The Violet Hour featuring the tangled lives of a successful artist, a gallerist and a collector between London, New York and Venice, he believes there is no such thing as the art world.
Tell us a little about your background in the art world?
I’ve worked in both the commercial art sector – in a role at Sadie Coles HQ – and in academic research and teaching.
An idea I explore in The Violet Hour is that there’s no such thing as the art world, despite
the fact everyone talks about it as a concrete reality.
The story is told from three perspectives: that of Lorna, an art dealer in her mid-forties, Thomas, a globally renowned abstract painter who was once Lorna’s closest friend, and an aging real-estate tycoon called Leo who lives alone in a Manhattan penthouse. The art world is a distinct thing for each of them.
What about Leo? His collecting seems compulsive and almost an attempt to transcend death. How much of the real world was in that character?
I regard him as an all-too-real creature. He’s egocentric, selfish, grasping and unrepentant – but also
human. Art collecting has turned into an obsession for him: at the beginning of the novel, he
becomes fixated with a painting by Thomas Haller, glimpsed in the pages of Artforum magazine. He develops a desire for the painting that borders on the sexual, and demands Lorna travel to London on his behalf to buy it.
You dedicated your book to the artist Maggi Hambling – can I ask why?
I first met Maggi when I went to interview her for a magazine, and I’ve written about her work many times in the years since. She’s become a close friend, but beside that, I think she’s one of our great contemporary artists – a maverick who has always resisted what’s fashionable or polemical in favour of a deeper emotional truth. And an artist who’s fearless about what she makes and the reactions it sparks.
:: The Violet Hour by James Cahill is out now. Published by Hodder & Stoughton
