This article examines the creative potential and the experimental tone of contemporary fic-tion focusing on the art world. More specifically, the essay acknowledges Muerte Súbita (2013) by Álvaro Enrigue as a valuable example of the capacity of this kind of art novel to produce alternative understandings of the art system. Instead of representing historical characters or following the rules of the art field, contemporary art fiction works like a modified system that partially develops its own rules. Precisely, it is such original dimension what turns contemporary art novels into a laboratory where novel ways of uderstanding the articulation between artistic production, cultural labour and broader socioeconomic processes is being developed.