Just picked up Steve Martin’s new fiction novel set in the 1990’s New York City art world, An Object of Beauty — and it seems to read a lot better than his recent chat at The 92nd Y. Apparently, the crowd there was expecting an appearance from “The Wild and Crazy Guy”, not a serious art talk.

Although I’m only a hundred pages in, the famous comedian/art collector obviously knows his way around an art museum as the book features some interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits about Sotheby’s and the other major auction houses as well as cameos from various high-profile contemporary art gallery owners like Robert Miller and Larry Gagosian. And I’m sure many of the same dirty dealer tricks mentioned in the book have occurred in the movie poster business, too, albeit on a much less grander scale.