Art Worlds 1

ART WORLDS

Who makes an art world? Why do we need them?

OUTLINE

• 1. THEORIES OF ART WORLDS

• 2. CRITICISMS OF ART WORLDS

• 3. ART AND SOCIETY

• 4. ART WORLDS REVISITED

• 5. A SOCIOLOGICAL THING CALLED ‘ART’??

THEORIES OF ART WORLDS I

• HOWARD BECKER• Art as collective

activity• Social networks

• Conventions• Mobilizing resources• Art critics• ‘Making distinctions’

THEORIES OF ART WORLDS I

• The making of exhibitions

• Ways of looking at art

• Public perception of value

• Art as an aesthetic object

THEORIES OF ART WORLDS I

• Art collections

• Guggenheim

• Tate, Britain, Modern…

• Museum of Modern Art

THEORIES OF ART WORLDS I

• Making distinctions• The Turner Prize

• A jury

• Public: nominates artists

• Art critics

THEORIES OF ART WORLDS II

• PIERRE BOURDIEU• Fields

• Symbolic struggles• Belief in the value of the

work

• Economic capital

• Symbolic capital

The art market as an art world

• Price is a collective activity

• Galleries, auction houses, dealers

• e.g. Australian art world/New York market

CRITICISMS OF ART WORLDS I

• Effects on the art object

• Externalist approach

• Rejecting intrinsic greatness!

• Intrinsic value?

• Experience, emotion, embodiment? •

CRITICISMS OF ART WORLDS II

• Effects on the artist

• Bourdieu, maximising their chances for success

• Becker, artists are passive

• Why some individuals choose to be artists?

CRITICISMS OF ART WORLDS III

• The art world as context

• Applicable to any social process, organisation, structure

• Changes in art worlds? • e.g. postmodernity

CRITICISMS OF ART WORLDS IV

• Defending sociology

• Sociological prudence?

• Disciplinary strategy?

• Homo Academicus, Bourdieu

• Tia DeNora• Music in Everyday Life

• Musicology• Art worlds

• Music’s properties • Music’s role in agency

formation

ART AND SOCIETY I

ART WORLDS REVISITED• Becker et al• Art from Start to Finish

• Finished?• Arbitrariness• A point in time…

QUESTIONS

• Art worlds? How useful?

• Value: external or internal?

• Social actors: manipulating, passive?

• Audiences: role? Embodiment, experience…

THINK TASK: RE-ASSESSING ART WORLDS

• Think of a specific example, a form of artistic production: opera performance, art exhibition, life music concert…

• Apply to it the analytical framework: artworlds/field

• List the advantages and disadvantages of this model

• Argument: how useful would it be as an arts manager?