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

1. Who & What Belongs in Art Worlds? (Cont’d) Manfred Eicher, Founder of ECM records Music listeners Guerrilla Gardeners at Hogan’s Alley site, c. 2008

2. Today’s Class Session Schedule • Other participants in ‘art worlds’—Mediation Processes • Presentation of Selected Readings: • Ashenhurst,Erin (David Halle’s research on art in the American home and family photos) • Martin, Dylan (Tia DeNora’s “How does music channel emotion?)

3. Recall: 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

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

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

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

7. 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

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

9. 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

10. Critiques of Peterson’s Production of Culture Perspective • Heavy emphasis on mediation processes and organizational structures or institutions • Ignores or de-emphasizes • “uniqueness” of art to research constructed nature of collective representations, values • Ignors roles of fans and consumers in shaping cultural products • meanings of cultural production • power relations

11. 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…

12. 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

13. 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) • Persistence of hierarchical models, commercial measures Barry Gordy in Hitsville recording studio, Detroit (Motown)

14. 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

15. 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)

16. 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.)

17. Video Screening “Off the Canvas. A Documentary Profiling 9 Maverick New York Women Art Dealers” produced and directed by Marcia Urbin Raymond and Joyce Zylberberg

18. Planning Short Assignments and Class Presentations • Discussion of reading assignments and ideas for topics for case studies • Additional Reading Assignment: • Selections from Eiko Ikegami’s book Bonds of Civility… chapter 6 required, introduction and conclusion recommended

19. 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.