Who & What Belongs in Art Worlds? (Cont’d)

1. Who & What Belongs in Art Worlds? (Cont’d) Yinka Shonibare Diary of a Victorian Dandy 14:00 hours, C-type print 1998

2. Artist’s Discourse (example) • Videoclip: Excerpt from Cai Guo-Qiang interview: Art:21(Art in the 21st Century) PBS • Olympic Ceremony Controversy (enhancement of Guo-Qiangs’s Footprints of History” firework performance • http://blog.art21.org/2008/08/22/cai-guo-qiang-responds-to-olympics-fireworks-controversy/

3. Today’s Class Session Schedule • Continue Discussion of Artists as a “social type” or “category” (very important in cultural & economy policy studies now) and identity issues in classification regimes • Presentation of Selected Readings: • Nicholas Perrin (Menger) • Megan Robertson (

4. Recall—Last Day: Conceptual & practical problems in studying artists & artistic careers • Establishing criteria for locating, identifying artists • “Irrationality” of choices (P-M. Menger) • Ex. Choosing poorer pay for more prestigious roles as an actor • Precarity & uncertainty of artistic careers • In modern times -- clash between notions of • career (regularities, patterns ) • artistic recognition (singularities, unique, break with past) • The ‘triple game’ of contemporary art (transgressions of boundaries of what is art , rejection by public, integration by arts professionals)—(Nathalie Heinich)

5. Changing views about values of art can lead to changes in the status of the artist, artwork & the social institutions & publics that support them • Beaune Altarpiece • PBS jazz series by Ken Burns • Examples of establishing “cannons” through testimony of “experts” (ex. critics, “stars”, fans) and changing shape of artforms

6. Unique artists, unique art works (individual) vs. social construction of art/artists (Zolberg) • Example: Problem of Multiples • negotiating artistic values in context of new technologies • new ways of thinking about connections between the artwork and the “aura” of the artist • Walter Benjamin-- “work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction”

7. Ways of Studying Artists & Arts professionals • “Are Artists Born or made?” • Theories about artists’ careers 1.labor of love (art for art’s sake) argument (Elliot Friedson) de-emphasizes income Arendt’s notions of labour (alienating but necessary) vs. work (creative vocation) 2.artists & arts professionals as risk-lovers, gamblers satisfaction proportionate to degree of uncertainty of success 3. Dual reward system monetary & non-monetary (psychic) gratification 4. Other—couldn’t do anything else

8. Formal training Issues • qualifications—non-routine activities depend on skills not easily transmitted or certified by a training system • impact of schooling on earnings smaller than other professional groups • mentoring/apprenticeships • job matching (leaning-by-doing process) • occupational risk diversification

9. Problems using “income” as a way of identifying for artists & arts professionals • Irregular incomes, seasonal variations, self-emploment • public sources (subsidies, commissions, sponsorship) • “privatization” (sales of services or works) • transfer income from other employment (multiple job holding) • personal (family, friends)

10. Careers in the arts and rationality of risk management (Menger) • “rational behaviour model” • but artistic careers are risky • high level of income inequality • high chance of “failure” • impermanence of artistic work, self-employment • amibiguity of transition from training to work (skills) • careers advance through recurrent & nonrecurrent work (non-routine work)

11. Criteria used in classifying art & artists • “aura” of the artist • Characteristics of • the art form and genre • audience/public (notion of consecration) • Publics or audiences “highbrow/lowbrow” tastes • arts organizations, networks associated with different art worlds

12. Mediation & “Support Structures” & Publics as factors in recognition & art-making • Arts worlds include all the people involved in art-making ????? • Cooperative links through shared conventions ??? • how participants • “draw lines” and what art worlds do • Mobilize resources (material resources, training personnel, networks, organizations) • Develop Distribution Systems and distinctions

13. Who Belongs in Art Worlds?Arts Occupations, Institutions, Networks (continued) & Mediation (Gatekeepers, Facilitators) Source: V. Alexander Sociology of the Arts…(2003), p. 63.

14. Participants in art worlds -- Creators/artists art Mediators Audiences/publics/consumers

15. Who Belongs to Art Worlds? Life Drawing Class, Bocour Paintmaking Studio NYC, c. 1942 c.

16. Production of Culture Perspective (Peterson, Anand) • How culture “shaped by systems in which it is created, distributed, evaluated, taught, preserved” • Culture not a mirror of society • Focus on • Expressive aspects of culture • Processes of symbol production • Analysis of organizations, occupations, networks, communities • Comparisons In situated studies of specific cultural forms and changes in them

17. Six Facet Model of Production • Technology • Law and regulation • Industry structure or field • Organizational structure of dominating organizatins • Occupational careers • Markets

18. Uses of the “Production Perspective” • Organizational Research • theories of management • institutional decision-making processes/logics • Networks of production • Resource partitioning patterns • Studies of Informal Relations • Links between Class and Culture (ex. univore/omnivore) • Resistance & appropriation • Fabricating authenticity

19. Peterson on Country Music • How do mediators (record producers) choose artists to promote? • Authenticity, originality, distinctiveness • Transformation of field of country music from 1923-1953 • Process of institutionalization • Identified audience

20. Authenticity • Paradox of creating authenticity artificially? • Socially-agreed upon idea (social construction of reality– through shared values & practices) • History of country music (a revolt that became a style) • Artificial notion of the ‘unchanged’ past– hillbilly music (poor rural white Southerners) • Early distain of this type of music because of its association with hillbilly culture • Evolution of terminology (to country and western)

21. Mediation in the Production of Culture Perspective • How law, technology, careers, markets, organizational structure shape culture (in this case a form of cultural expression called ‘country music’) • notion of social production of culture (shared values, practices etc.) • Emergence of differentiated roles in the field of cultural production (manager, talent agent etc.)

22. Critiques of Peterson’s Production of Culture Perspective • Ignores or de-emphasizes • “uniqueness” of art to research constructed nature of collective representations, values • roles of fans and consumers in shaping cultural products • meanings of cultural production • power relations

23. Participants in Mediation Processes • Gatekeepers vs. facilitators : types vary with art form and genres • Ex. Diana Crane on proponents of Avant-Garde Art • Examples of types of “mediators” (between creators and publics): book publishers, record companies, film distribution networks, art gallery owners, booking agents, critics, reviewers for media, museum curators, sometimes even fans or fan clubs, etc…

24. Characteristics of the Mediators & Artistic Values • Mediation as a way of conferring status • The role of critics and other gatekeepers in recognition processes, examples: • Shrum– emergence of Fringe Festivals as a performing arts genre when critics begin to review it • Change in status of Graffiti and recognition by artists • Institutional forms & legitimation practices • Status of “Venues”, status of artists • Not-for-profit and for-profit models & differences in socio-cultural status (DiMaggio) Super Bowl XXXVIII, Halftime show, 2004

25. Mediators & Position in Field of Artistic “production” • Former emphasis on control, domination, social “reproduction” • Social origins and established formulas or genres • Hegemony & cultural industries • Cultural things as mirrors of underlying structures (functionalism, Marxism) • New theories– more dynamic • Symbolic exchange, interaction • Neo-institutionalism &”production of culture approach” (Peterson, DiMaggio) • BUT--Persistence of hierarchical models, commercial measures (commodification etc.) Barry Gordy in Hitsville recording studio, Detroit (Motown)

26. Planning Short Assignments and Class Presentations • Discussion of reading assignments and ideas for topics for case studies

27. Note to Users of these Outlines-- • not all material covered in class appears on these outlines-- important examples, demonstrations and discussions aren’t written down here. • Classes are efficient ways communicating information and provide you will an opportunity for regular learning. These outlines are provided as a study aid not a replacement for classes.