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Visual Arts, Music, and Aesthetic Experience
Fiona Greenland
LAST MODIFIED: 27 JUNE 2017
DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199756384-0200
Introduction
Artistic fields are the spaces of activity in which art is produced, evaluated, and interpreted. Aesthetics, deriving from the Greek word for
“perception,” attends to judgments of taste about artworks and other sensory objects. In sociology, aesthetic experience as a subfield
developed from studies of taste and judgment and now extends to sophisticated analyses of materiality and material encounters, cultural
consumption, and iconicity. As this article suggests, there is no single domain within sociology for the study of art. Sociology of art permits a
diverse range of methodological and empirical approaches to the relationship between societies and cultural objects. What unites this
broad area of work is the understanding that the arts and social theory are equal partners; art offers a source of “existential social
knowledge that is of its own worth” (Harrington 2004, p. 3 [cited under General Overviews]). In other words, art can reveal certain aspects
of society that other social phenomena cannot.
Classic Works
The framework for sociological studies of art in the early 21st century was developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Karl Marx,
Georg Simmel, Émile Durkheim, and W. E. B. Du Bois, among others. These thinkers drew on Enlightenment ideas about aesthetics,
beauty, and the nature of form, particularly via Immanuel Kant, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and David Hume. Although those earlier
philosophical ideas are still present in sociological studies of art, the contemporary subfield has largely bracketed metaphysical questions to
focus instead on issues of institutions, knowledge production, materiality, and social class and status. Marx’s legacy is especially evident in
the works of Lukács 1971 and Hauser 1999 (cited under Theoretical Developments, originally published in 1951). Durkheim 1995 (originally
published in 1915) established a sociological framework for analyzing the cohesive effects of artistic objects and images on a community.
The contribution of Du Bois 1926 to sociological studies of art was the idea that systemic prejudice limits opportunities for artists of color.
Nevertheless, Du Bois made a strong case for artistic autonomy as the most promising path to elevate the status of black artists. Simmel’s
meditations on artists and their works present a distinct path of enquiry from his contemporaries. According to Simmel 2005 (originally
published in 1916), art was not merely an object of social scientific study but rather the very basis of a Lebensphilosophie, or the
philosophy of life that illuminates the modern social condition. Adorno 2002 (originally published in 1932) and Benjamin 2008 (originally
published in 1936) pushed beyond Marxian critique to insist that artistic productions have a meaningful impact on listeners and viewers.
Modern classics by Becker 1982, Bourdieu 1984, Crane 1987, and Zolberg 1990 represent a scholarly shift from seeing aesthetics as the
outcome of contentious political and economic forces to situating artists and their works in social networks populated by a range of actors
and institutions with different forms of power and agency. Elias 1993 insists that the artist and her or his works must be understood together
—that the singular characteristics have meaning for sociological generalization—and thereby lays the groundwork for sociological study of
creative genius.
Adorno, Theodor W. 2002. On the social situation of music [1932]. In Essays on music. Edited by Richard Leppert, 391–436.
Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
Adorno wrote several essays on music, examining how the modern age structures the possibility of musical expression. In this essay
(dated 1932), he argues that “monopoly capitalism” has corroded freedom of production and consumption in musical life. Adorno laid the
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groundwork for treating music as a causal force on people and for thinking about an artistic form as a manifestation of society, rather than
an appendage that exists alongside it.
Becker, Howard. 1982. Art worlds. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press.
Becker’s book was pioneering in its presentation of art as a product of labor and cooperation rather than genius and isolated individuals
The author states that there is no single art world, but rather multiple networks of this type of cooperative activity. The “art work,” in this
frame, is the product of a self-reinforcing system of values, labor, and organizational practices. Although the network is loosely structured, it
holds together through a range of actors.
Benjamin, Walter. 2008. The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction. Edited by Hannah Arendt. Transcribed by Andy
Blunden. London: Penguin.
Originally published in 1936. Benjamin explores the impact of modern technologies of artistic reproduction on the meaning and experience
of art. In this sense, the essay sits within an early-20th-century tradition of contemplating the consequences of urbanization and mass
mechanization on human culture and societies. Benjamin’s central argument is that art in the modern period has lost the singular “auratic”
quality that characterized earlier periods of art.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste. Translated by Richard Nice. London: Routledge.
Distinction is now a core text in the sociological study of taste and art. Bourdieu’s achievement was to demonstrate how taste reinforces
status distinctions—distinctions that are durable even in the face of changing fashions in art, music, and other cultural spheres. Since
Bourdieu, sociologists have studied questions concerning taste formation, objective and subjective knowledge, and communities of taste
making and taste reinforcing.
Crane, Diana. 1987. The transformation of the Avant-Garde: The New York art world, 1940–1985. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Crane examines transformations in the New York City art world since World War II. She traces the careers of more than 400 artists, using
biographies, museum catalogues, and other documentary sources to trace the artists’ productions and the reception and circulation of their
work. Drawing on her diverse data, Crane reconstructs the individual and organizational relationships of each artist, offering a detailed
picture of how these affiliations shaped artistic practice, ideology, and aesthetic sway.
Du Bois, W. E. B. 1926. Criteria of Negro art. The Crisis 32 (October): 290–297.
Du Bois asks, should African American artists produce works that explicitly engage with the social and political goals of the black
community? Or should they be freed from that pressure and allowed to pursue the Muse to their own ends? Du Bois supports the second
position, believing that doing so will raise black artists to the highest levels of respect and attainment within the canonical fine arts, bringing
recognition and respect to the entire community.
Durkheim, Émile. 1995. The elementary forms of the religious life. Translated by Karen Fields. New York: Free Press.
Originally published in English in 1915. Durkheim argues that creative expressions including music, dance, and images are “collective
representations” through which societies symbolically represent themselves to each other and to other groups. Although Durkheim does not
address art per se, his idea of the totem—a collectively recognized object with meaning-rich images and form—has been developed by
contemporary scholars interested in how social actors make sense of the world with and through cultural objects.
Elias, Norbert. 1993. Mozart: Portrait of a genius. Edited by Michael Schröter. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
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Elias describes Mozart as a “genius before the age of genius,” arguing that the musician’s preternatural rise to fame and tragic early death
are both explained by the social constraints of 18th-century European court life. Mozart navigated both the petite bourgeoisie and the
aristocracy, and his experiment with freelance musicianship crystallizes the tensions between them. The book is essential reading for those
interested in the social production of music.
Lukács, György. 1971. The theory of the novel. Translated by Anna Bostock. London: Merlin.
Originally written in 1914. Lukács was the first to identify in Marx’s writings a systematic philosophy of aesthetics. This book tries to develop
a theory of meaning as much as it does a theory of the novel. Although Lukács later repudiated his text and reworked his literary ideas in
The Historical Novel twenty years later, The theory of the novel remains an important text for understanding the development of Marxist
aesthetics.
Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. 1974. The German ideology. 2d ed. Edited by C. J. Arthur. London: Lawrence & Wishart.
Originally published in 1846. Marx’s ideas about art are developed in different texts over a period of several years. The fine arts, he argued,
are a privilege of the ruling classes because they have the money and leisure time to produce and enjoy them. Also influential, particularly
on later studies of cultural consumption and status, is Marx’s argument that the aesthetic content of art reflects the set of social class
relationships from which they arise.
Simmel, Georg. 2005. Rembrandt: An essay in the philosophy of art. Translated and edited by Alan Scott and Helmut Staubmann.
New York and London: Routledge and Taylor.
Originally published in 1916. For Simmel, art can only be understood properly when it is situated in the entire matrix of life’s relationships,
built environment, ideas, language, and other processes and rituals seemingly unconnected with art. In Rembrandt, Simmel’s interest is in
developing the philosophical essence of Rembrandt and connecting it to the theme of inner life, creativity, and human action.
Zolberg, Vera. 1990. Constructing a sociology of the arts. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
In this foundational text, Zolberg assesses various sociological approaches to the study of artists and artworks and develops her own
approach in which the individual creative process is a vital part of the overall structure of the art world. The book is important for its incisive
analysis and empirical breadth, including sections on how artists’ careers develop, why artistic styles change, and what impact the public
audience, collectors, and curators have on artists’ choices.
General Overviews
The past decade has seen the publication of a number of works providing overviews of theories and methods pertaining to the sociological
study of arts. Among these works are readers that offer excerpts and commentaries on key texts (Tanner 2003) or deep, multifaceted
inquiry into a single thinker (i.e., Riley, et al. 2013 on Durkheim). Also important are edited volumes featuring chapters by several authors
whose lively critiques reveal key debates within the broader field of sociological study of culture, an area that extends beyond the visual or
canonical fine arts and into other areas of cultural activity including music, literature, film, and dance (Spillman 2002, Inglis and Hughson
2005, and Hanquinet and Savage 2016). Witkin 1995 and van Maanen 2009 present comprehensive critical evaluations of influential
theories of the social system of art, generating their own breakthrough ideas about social development and symbolism and the effects of
art, respectively. Newcomers to art sociology will benefit from Alexander 2003 and Fuente 2007, each of which assesses the lay of the
scholarly land. Those with conceptual interests will find a comprehensive, critical synthesis of art sociology theories in Harrington 2004. The
important and growing literature in music sociology is made accessible in Shepherd and Devine 2015.
Alexander, Victoria D. 2003. Sociology of the arts: Exploring fine and popular forms. Oxford: Blackwell.
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Alexander presents a comprehensive overview of how sociologists study art. The introduction discusses various methodological
approaches within the subfield. From there, the author organizes her synthesis into fourteen major themes, among them “Reflection
Approaches” (pp. 21–40), “Art Worlds” (pp. 67–88), and “Globalization” (pp. 157–178). The book features case studies throughout, which
are helpful for illustrating the questions and disputes within art sociology.
Fuente, Eduardo de la. 2007. The “new sociology of art”: Putting art back into social science approaches to the arts. Cultural
Sociology 1.3: 409–425.
In this concise yet comprehensive journal article, Fuente synthesizes sociological study of the arts. Starting with the discipline’s interest in
cultural production (via institutions and fields of activity), sociology has moved toward questions about objects’ meaning, physical qualities,
and active relationships with people. The author argues that this recent wave of work should be called the “new sociology of art” to clarify
its commitment to artistic autonomy and social agency.
Hanquinet, Laurie, and Michael Savage, eds. 2016. Routledge international handbook of the sociology of art and culture. London:
Routledge.
The editors bridge the divide between “sociology of culture” and “cultural sociology” by concentrating on the arts (visual, music, literary, and
performative) as a key sphere of social-relational activity, thereby bracketing long-standing debates over broad and narrow definitions of
culture. They bring together essays that cover a range of empirical cases using cutting-edge theoretical approaches. Divided into three
main parts: Part 1, “Bourdieu's Legacy and New Perspectives for the Sociology of Art and Culture”; Part 2, “The Fabric of Aesthetics”; and
Part 3, “The Complexity of Cultural Classifications,” each prefaced with a synthesizing essay.
Harrington, Austin. 2004. Art and social theory: Sociological arguments in aesthetics. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Drawing on a deep list of sociologists and social theorists, Harrington evaluates the central debates about the place of the arts in society.
The book is especially strong for its examination of classic theorists: Max Weber, Georg Simmel, Walter Benjamin, György Lukács, Herbert
Marcuse, and Theodor Adorno. Harrington synthesizes the theories and weaves them into critical discussions about aesthetic value and
cultural politics, taste and social class, money and patronage, and the contested meanings of different aesthetic regimes and practices.
Hicks, Dan, and Mary C. Beaudry, eds. 2010. The Oxford handbook of material culture studies. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
Materiality studies constitute an important and growing literature within the subfield of art sociology. The editors bring together scholars
from sociology, anthropology, and archaeology in a series of chapters focusing on specific aspects of material production, use, and change.
The handbook is divided into five parts: Part 1, “Disciplinary Perspectives”; Part 2, “Material Practices”; Part 3, “Objects and Humans”; Part
4, “Landscapes and the Built Environment”; and Part 5, “Studying Particular Things.”
Inglis, David, and John Hughson, eds. 2005. The sociology of art: Ways of seeing. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
This edited volume is equally divided between theoretical approaches in sociology of the arts (Part 1, “Theory Past, Present and Future”)
and empirical case studies of several artistic genres (Part 2, “From Theory to Practice: Case Studies in the Sociology of Art”). Linking the
essays is an interest in the social relations that inform the production and reception of artworks, broadly defined. Nonvisual arts are well
represented in chapters on opera, world music, ballet, and film.
Riley, Alexander, W. S. F. Pickering, and William Watts Miller, eds. 2013. Durkheim, the Durkheimians, and the arts. New York and
Oxford: Berghahn.
Durkheim himself did not develop a thorough, specific theory of art; however, this edited volume draws on Durkheim’s general sociological
theory of culture to explain the significance of his legacy for the sociological study of aesthetics, artists, and the production and reception of
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art. Chapters 1 through 6 focus on Durkheim; chapters 7 through 12 examine the ideas of Durkheimian thinkers, including Maurice
Halbwachs and Claude Lévi-Strauss.
Shepherd, John, and Kyle Devine, eds. 2015. The Routledge reader on the sociology of music. New York: Routledge.
This is the first comprehensive anthology on music sociology, a growing area within the sociology of arts. The editors provide excerpts from
foundational texts and arrange excerpts from more recent publications into key topics. The volume is an essential starting point for
sociologists interested in the production and legitimation of musical genres, controversies over the meaning of music as a social object, and
the impact of music on everyday life.
Spillman, Lyn, ed. 2002. Cultural sociology. Oxford: Blackwell.
Spillman’s edited reader provides a broad empirical and conceptual base for sociological studies of art, collecting thirty-one excerpts from
publications by leading thinkers in the field of cultural sociology. Several of the pieces in the “Cultural Production” section (pp. 149–220)
deal explicitly with the art world, the production of artworks, and art institutions’ organizational practices.
Tanner, Jeremy, ed. 2003. The sociology of art: A reader. New York: Routledge.
Tanner’s book offers excerpts from key sociological works on the (Western) world of art. Each excerpt is prefaced by a short commentary.
Selected works include essays by classic thinkers (Marx, Weber, Simmel, and Durkheim), and more contemporary authors including
Nathalie Heinich, Howard Becker, Raymond Williams, and Vera Zolberg. Highly recommended as a starting point for newcomers to
sociology of art.
van Maanen, Hans. 2009. How to study art worlds: On the societal functioning of aesthetic values. Amsterdam: Amsterdam Univ.
Press.
A major question for sociologists of the arts is what artistic productions do—in other words, how they function socially. Van Maanen’s
answer is that artworks develop “the power of imagination” (p. 224) at both the individual and collective level by challenging the perceptual
habits of the audience. He begins with a critique of influential theories of art worlds (by George Dickie, Howard Becker, Nathalie Heinich,
and others) and an analysis of philosophical discussions of art.
Witkin, Robert. 1995. Art and social structure. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Building on classic philosophical and psychological ideas about symbolism and abstraction, Witkin identifies three stages of art—
invocational, evocational, and prevocational—each of which explains a dialectical relationship between systems of social production and
styles of artistic expression. His chapter on Jan van Eyck’s The Marriage of Arnolfini (pp. 138–154) “reads” the painting as a visual
document of the shift from seigneurial to bourgeoisie society in 15th-century Europe.
Journals
Many general sociology journals publish articles on artistic fields and aesthetic experience, with varying levels of regularity and
specialization. In addition, there are a number of journals focused on sociological studies of art. These include the American Journal of
Cultural Sociology, Cultural Sociology, Poetics, Music and Arts in Action, and Theory, Culture, & Society, which feature original theoretical
and empirical research on the arts writ large. Thesis Eleven, Theory and Society, and Qualitative Sociology also provide a forum for
discussing artistic activity and aesthetic theories. Most of these journals offer book review sections, which are useful for information on
current findings and developments in the field.
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American Journal of Cultural Sociology. 2013–.
Founded in 2013, the American Journal of Cultural Sociology features theoretically informed empirical research into cultural topics including
material culture, the production of meaning, literature, and collective memory. Several of the papers published in the journal have advanced
the “strong program” in cultural sociology, which holds that the artistic object has a meaning that is independent of outside social forces.
The journal is peer reviewed and publishes three issues per year.
Cultural Sociology. 2007–.
First published in 2007, this journal is known for its methodologically rigorous articles on film, literature, popular culture, music, journalism,
museums, and the visual arts. The journal is peer reviewed and publishes four issues per year.
Music and Arts in Action. 2008–.
MAiA is an interdisciplinary journal that brings together scholars from anthropology, sociology, musicology, film studies, and psychology,
among other fields. Articles focus on the dynamic role of the arts in social life, concentrating on the ways in which such productions shape
us as individuals and communities. The journal is open access, published online two to three times per year.
Poetics. 1971–.
Poetics is an interdisciplinary social scientific journal publishing theoretical and empirical research on the arts, media, and culture. First
published in 1971, it has a long-standing reputation for attracting papers with innovative methodologies and theories of cultural
consumption and production. The journal is peer reviewed and publishes four to five times a year with frequent special issues focusing on
particular themes.
Qualitative Sociology. 1978–.
As the title suggests, this journal focuses on qualitative methodologies, including ethnographic and archival tools for the analysis of social
phenomena. It frequently publishes articles on museum studies, artistic fields, and aesthetic experience. Founded in 1978, the journal is
peer reviewed and produces four issues per year.
Theory and Society. 1974–.
Publishing since 1974, the subtitle of this peer-reviewed journal is “Renewal and Critique in Social Theory.” The journal positions itself to
engage in innovative theoretical discussions, which often have bearing on cultural questions including images, artistic production, and
institutional arrangements within artistic fields. Theory and Society publishes six issues per year, with occasional special issues.
Theory, Culture, & Society. 1982–.
Since 1982, Theory, Culture, & Society has published cutting-edge social theories of culture and the arts. The journal is peer reviewed and
is known for showcasing scholarship that takes a global, often non-Western perspective on cultural consumption and production.
Thesis Eleven. 1980–.
This is a peer-reviewed quarterly journal, with a multidisciplinary approach to critical theories of modernity. Showcasing the broad scope of
social theory, the journal encourages the study of culture from the margins, using under-explored empirics and theories to understand
cultural phenomena. This is a great journal in which to discover new and emerging voices in the field.
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Theoretical Developments
Since the mid-20th century, sociologists have generally moved away from the classical sociologists’ focus on art as structurally and
functionally derivative. Two key theoretical concerns today are meaning and structure. Meaning refers to the affective and symbolic
significance that a work has for a person, whereas structure refers to the relationship between art and society. The two are related in the
sense that how you see the nature of artistic production impacts the possibilities of meaning. Hauser 1999 offered an innovative theoretical
platform that retained the Marxian insistence on art’s vulnerability to ideology, yet insisted that images have real meaning to people.
Bourdieu 1968 presaged his influential Distinction (Bourdieu 1984, cited under Classic Works), offering a pioneering theory of art
perception as being mediated by social class and instrumental in the reproduction of inequality. Wolff 1993 found a different answer to this
problem, arguing that creativity and ideology are balanced in the art-making process. Becker 1982 (cited under Classic Works) focused on
the art world as a loosely connected network of makers, collectors, patrons, scholars, and so forth, held together by a shared belief in the
value of art. Geertz 1983, writing from an anthropological perspective, argued that meaning is locally circumscribed and can only be
understood in the context of specific relationships. Whether and to what extent art is autonomous—via production, form, and meaning—is a
major theme for sociologists, and key developments were made in Luhmann 2000, Alexander and Smith 2001, and Gumbrecht 2004.
Alexander, Jeffrey C., and Philip Smith. 2001. The Strong Program in cultural sociology: Elements of a structural hermeneutics. In
Handbook of sociological theory. Edited by Jonathan Turner, 135–150. New York: Springer.
Alexander and Smith acknowledge the significance of the “cultural turn” for sociology and argue for developing a “strong program” that
prioritizes the autonomy of art. This essay, which has been reprinted in other volumes, is important for establishing the conceptual and
methodological tenets of cultural sociology as distinct from sociology of culture. Alexander and Smith’s theoretical development paved the
way for later studies of iconicity, materiality, and perception in the arts.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1968. Outline of a sociological theory of art perception. International Social Science Journal 20:589–612.
Originally published as “Élements d’une théorie sociologique de la perception artistique” (Revue international des sciences sociales 20.4
[1968]: 5–14). The ability to “read” art, i.e., to comprehend and mobilize the code, is acquired primarily through formal education and the
family’s related social circles. Artistic competence is not only about art, then, but also about one’s facility in interpreting and perceiving
relationships between symbols in general. Especially influential is the idea that art is important because it helps to reinforce class
differences in subtle, seemingly innocuous ways
Geertz, Clifford. 1983. Art as a cultural system. In Geertz, Clifford. Local knowledge: Further essays in interpretive archaeology.
Pages 94–120. New York: Basic Books.
Geertz offers an anthropological view of the collective creation and function of art, and this view is helpful to sociologists interested in
moving outside the lines of formal institutional and organizational boundaries to think about how art is created. He argues that feelings
drawn from a cultural product and the activity surrounding its creation and reception are deeply rooted in local patterns of ritual, meaning,
and understanding of the world.
Gumbrecht, Hans. 2004. Production of presence: What meaning cannot convey. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.
Gumbrecht presents a nuanced philosophical argument about the relationship between presence and meaning in art. Presence and
meaning always coexist and are always in tension; there is no solution to balance or smooth them out. The author’s theory of presence
complements the ideas in Luhmann 2000 about the communicative properties of art and provides conceptual underpinnings for sociological
studies of perception in cultural materiality (see, inter alia, Griswold, et al. 2013; Klett 2014; and Rose-Greenland 2016, all cited under
Materiality and Perception).
Hauser, Arnold. 1999. The social history of art. 4 vols. London: Routledge.
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Originally published in 1951. The core achievement of this work is a theory that systematically correlates artistic style with social structure.
In authoritarian and aristocratic societies, Hauser argues, we find a type of art that is typically flat, symbolic, and formalized. In
individualistic and bourgeois societies, we find art that is typically naturalistic and realistic. Hauser’s work is important for extending
classical sociological concerns with solidarity (Durkheim) and modernity (Weber) into new ideas about the shared meaning of art.
Luhmann, Niklas. 2000. Art as a social system. Translated by Eva M. Knodt. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.
Luhmann theorizes art as constituting a distinct system within the plural functional systems that comprise society. He argues for a
conditional understanding of artistic autonomy, in the sense that art emerged as a recognized form of societal communication in the early
modern period and has developed into that role ever since. The book offers a nuanced critique of the idea of artistic autonomy and is an
important starting point for postmodern sociological theories of art.
Wolff, Janet. 1993. The social production of art. 2d ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Originally published in 1981. Wolff’s book was innovative for its critical assessment of the social nature of the arts, which entails its
production, circulation, and reception. She offers an innovative treatment of creativity; in spite of the demonstrable influence of ideology on
artistic production, creativity remains an important feature of making art. Wolff draws on ideas from sociology, art history, feminism, and
literary and media studies.
Producing Art
Creative Labor, Artists’ Careers, and the Institutionalization of Art
A painter can produce a painting but cannot, on his/her own, produce art. This is the general premise of sociological studies of the
production of art. “Art” is a collective achievement, generated by individuals and institutions linked by a shared belief in the importance of
aesthetic practice. Several sociologists have offered sustained theoretical engagement with the question of how this collective endeavor
works and with what implications. Another core feature of sociological studies of art is the understanding that talent alone does not
guarantee success as an artist. White and White 1993 and Lang and Lang 1988 examine the interplay of artists, dealers, collectors,
galleries, and genres in forging careers. Heinich 1996 extends the sociological interest in artistic careers to the question of reputation,
offering a sophisticated theoretical treatment of Van Gogh’s posthumous reification. Baumann 2007 constructs an innovative general theory
of artistic legitimation, whereas Janssen, et al. 2008 focuses on the role of newspapers in shaping awareness and opinion of diverse artistic
forms. Danto 1964 and Dickie 1974 were philosophers whose ideas about the way in which objects are institutionalized as art influenced
sociological thought.
Baumann, Shyon. 2007. A general theory of artistic legitimation: How art worlds are like social movements. Poetics 35:47–65.
Baumann tackles a question that is central to sociological study of the arts: How do cultural products become works of art? The key
concept here is legitimation, “a process whereby the new and unaccepted is rendered valid and accepted” (p. 48). Whereas several authors
have offered case studies of the legitimation process in specific fields of artistic production, Baumann advances a general theory. The
unique aspect of this paper is the extended comparison of artistic legitimation with social movements.
Danto, Arthur. 1964. The artworld. Journal of Philosophy 61.19: 571–584.
Philosopher and art critic Danto set the stage for an institutional definition of art, arguing against philosophical-semantic definitions.
Language, he asserts, is insufficient to explain why some objects are art and some are non-art. The core idea here is that museums,
galleries, and funding agencies have the power to distinguish between art and non-art, anticipating sociology of art’s interest in legitimating
institutions.
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Dickie, George. 1974. Art and the aesthetic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
Dickie argues that the act of bringing an object into the art museum or gallery is what makes the object “art.” Digging deeper into the case
of Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain, Dickie draws out a generalizable principle—a work that is classified as art is “a set of the aspects of which
has had conferred upon it the status of candidate for appreciation by some person or persons acting on behalf of a certain social institution”
(p. 34).
DiMaggio, Paul. 1987. Classification in art. American Sociological Review 52:440–455.
DiMaggio analyzes “the relationships between social structure, patterns of artistic consumption and production, and the ways in which
artistic genres are classified” (p. 440). This is important because classificatory systems both naturalize divisions and make intelligible
certain forms of knowledge (in this case, artistic). The analysis underscores the institutionalization of new art forms as an outcome of
epistemic as well as organizational practice.
Heinich, Nathalie. 1996. The glory of Van Gogh: An anthropology of admiration. Translated by Paul Leduc Browne. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton Univ. Press.
Heinich traces the arc of Van Gogh’s reputation, from “isolated figure” in 1890 to a widely renowned, saintly “genius” by 1940. Drawing on a
wide range of materials, Heinich argues that the consecration of Van Gogh’s reputation was a collective phenomenon. The book contributes
both to the understanding of artistic reputation and to the role of artists’ lives in collective memory.
Janssen, Susanne, Giselinde Kuipers, and Marc Verboord. 2008. Cultural globalization and arts journalism: The international
orientation of arts and cultural coverage in Dutch, French, German, and U. S. newspapers, 1955 to 2005. American Sociological
Review 73:719–740.
The authors use content analysis from a large set of newspaper stories to examine cultural elites’ exposure to international artistic activity.
They identify a number of important patterns, including a correspondence between a country’s dominance in the world system (i.e., as a
political and economic power) and its centrality to the art world, as well as the increase in European newspapers of international arts
coverage while the focus in American newspapers was on domestic cultural activity.
Lang, Gladys Engel, and Kurt Lang. 1988. Recognition and renown: The survival of artistic reputation. American Journal of
Sociology 94.1: 79–109.
The authors argue that artists and their works are more likely to enjoy a positive, enduring reputation when a legitimating ideology is
constructed around them and their works find a permanent institutional home. Appreciation for an artist’s ouvre and aesthetic skills are not
sufficient on their own to sustain a strong reputation. The structure of the artist’s network, combining admiring colleagues and supportive
institutional contacts, is also important.
White, Harrison, and Cynthia White. 1993. Canvases and careers: Institutional change in the French painting world. Chicago:
Univ. of Chicago Press.
Originally published in 1965. The authors develop the term “dealer–critic system,” referring to the new power of art dealers and art critics to
shape art production and artists’ careers. The book was a landmark study, one of the first to apply sociological methods to examine the
emergence of the modern art market and the emergence of new artistic forms and incentive structures in the second half of the 19th
century.
Museums
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Sociological studies of art have long recognized the importance of museums and other formal cultural institutions; they shape the nature
and content of aesthetic experience and have epistemic power through systems of classification, categorization, and reification. Earlier
work (see Danto 1964 and Dickie 1974, both cited under Creative Labor, Artists’ Careers, and the Institutionalization of Art) insisted that
museums serve a gatekeeping function by sorting out art from non-art. More recent studies accept that institutionalization is significant, yet
insist on a multiplicity of implications for, and iterations of, the museum effect. Zolberg 1981, DiMaggio 1982, and Alexander 1996 focus on
the interplay of resources, social location, and professionalization in elite art museums. Duncan 1995 and Hooper-Greenhill 1992 examine
the ways in which museums shape knowledge about the social world through the objects’ curatorial treatments and display. Acord 2010
peers into the work of the curator, whereas Fyfe 2006 provides a helpful summary of sociological work on museums.
Acord, Sophia. 2010. Beyond the head: The practical work of curating contemporary art. In Special issue: Knowledge and
practice. Edited by Claudio Benzecry and Monika Krause. Qualitative Sociology 33:447–467.
Acord advances theory on two fronts. First, she regards artworks as “actants,” nonhuman, active shapers of museum work. Second, she
conducts a photo- and video-based microsociology study of curators in action. Acord demonstrates how museum curators make meaning
of art through the process of setting up exhibitions.
Alexander, Victoria. 1996. Pictures at an exhibition: Conflicting pressures in museums and the display of art. American Journal of
Sociology 101.4: 797–839.
Alexander asks whether art museums’ funding structure influences the presentation and content of art shows. She finds that funders’
influence increased from the 1960s to the 1990s. Museum administrators deployed several strategies to protect their authority and
legitimacy from funders. Alexander’s article is important for understanding the impact of mundane organizational practices on art museums,
which are highly influential on public experiences of art.
Bourdieu, Pierre, Alain Darbel, Dominique Schnapper, et al. 1990. The love of art: European art museums and their public.
Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.
The authors ask why, if public art museums are open to all citizens, only a relatively small and privileged segment of the population passes
through their doors. The answer contains three parts: (1) museum visiting presupposes an aspiration to specific forms of knowledge and
bodily disposition; (2) requisite cultural capital is unequally distributed; and (3) inequalities of cultural capital are continually reproduced
through schools and other formative institutions.
DiMaggio, Paul. 1982. Cultural entrepreneurship in nineteenth-century Boston: The creation of an organizational base for high
culture in America. Media, Culture and Society 4:33–50.
In this classic article, DiMaggio examines the institutionalization of high culture in the United States. Through the Museum of Fine Arts and
the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston elites provided an institutional home for high culture. By funding the organizations and attending
their shows, elites ensured that the fine arts and classical music became rooted in the social landscape and, eventually, taken for granted
as part of the American urban experience.
Duncan, Carol. 1995. Civilizing rituals: Inside public art museums. New York: Routledge.
This is an important starting point for anyone interested in how art museums shape people sociologically. Through curatorial and display
practices, specific strategies for organizing galleries, and the deployment of authorized personnel (security guards, docents, etc.),
museums “civilize” bodies and minds of visitors. Duncan finds that museum visitors respond positively to artworks when the works are
arranged and narrated in such a way that confirms the visitors’ perceptions of the social world.
Fyfe, Gordon. 2006. Sociology and the social aspects of museums. In A companion to museum studies. Edited by Sharon
Macdonald, 33–49. Oxford: Blackwell.
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Fyfe provides an overview of sociological study of museums. The article is divided into six parts, each focused on a key theme within the
subfield: disciplinary origins and institutional affinities; cultures of space (how spatial arrangements impact visitors’ understanding of the
objects and the institution); materializing and visualizing knowledge; museums as social facts; museums, people, and cultures of collecting;
and museums as agencies of social research.
Hooper-Greenhill, Eilean. 1992. Museums and the shaping of knowledge. London: Routledge.
What is the basis of rationality in the museum and what counts as knowledge in this setting? These are two of the basic, yet important,
questions that Hooper-Greenhill tackles. The author’s sustained investigation of the concept of rationality in the museum setting marked a
key development in the museological literature.
Zolberg, Vera. 1981. Conflicting visions in American art museums. Theory and Society 10.1: 103–125.
Zolberg concentrates on the professionalization of museum leadership. She demonstrates how the move from the leadership of preprofessional laypersons to art professional curators to post-professional managerial executives has shaped the development of American
art museums. The case is set within the bigger story of the increased autonomy of the art world in opposition to control by elite individuals
and families (the early museum patrons) and, more recently, corporate interests.
Art and Money
The social basis of value is the focus of several recent publications in sociological studies of art. Scholars have argued that value is
multifaceted and fluid. Monetary assessments—whether auction hammer estimates, sale prices, or insurance valuations—comprise only
one category. Value also encompasses symbolic features and status signification. Originally written in 1967, Moulin 1987 was one of the
first sociologists to study the art market as a complete social system and to specify typologies of actors within it. Frey and Pommerehne
1989 is an important starting point for investigating the formal economic structures of art valuation. Velthuis and Coslor 2012 takes one
specific development in the art–economics relationship—financialization—and examines its implications for both sides. The rise of
corporate power within the art world is the concern of Martorella 1990 and Wu 2002, who argue that private firms have assumed a place of
cultural power that previously resided in the public body. The interplay of symbolism and monetary values point to art’s social fluidity, a point
explored in different directions by Velthuis 2007, Graw 2009, and Banks 2010 (cited under Taste and Social Location). Global flows of
people, cultural values, and artworks constitute a growing concern for sociological studies of art. Wong 2013 offers an empirically and
theoretically rich intervention with her study of the mass replication of masterpiece paintings in a south China city.
Frey, Bruno S., and Werner W. Pommerehne. 1989. Muses and markets: Explorations in the economics of the arts. Oxford:
Blackwell.
The authors tackle a range of questions concerning the relationship between money and art. They look at institutional structures, such as
how cultural institutions are financed and whether such arrangements shape program offerings, as well as consumption patterns (who buys
artworks or tickets to shows, who does not, and what these patterns tell us about the future of art markets).
Graw, Isabelle. 2009. High price: Art between the market and celebrity culture. Translated by Nicholas Grindell. Berlin: Sternberg.
Graw examines the relationship between art and the market. She argues that there is no strict separation between the two and rejects the
notion that artists and artworks are the victims of market forces, including commodification. Instead, Graw shows that art and the market
are “mutually dependent,” while allowing for some degree of autonomy. The book’s illustrative stories and case studies make it accessible
to students and newcomers to the field.
Karpik, Lucien. 2010. Valuing the unique: The economics of singularities. Translated by Nora Scott. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ.
Press.
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How do priceless works of art operate as commodities within a market? Karpik argues that artworks, along with fine wines and symphonic
recordings, are singularities, or goods that are incommensurable with other goods in a shared category. The market for singularities
operates through judgment devices, or taste-forming mechanisms informed by social networks. This is a key work for understanding the
social structure of artworks’ market value.
Martorella, Rosanne. 1990. Corporate art. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press.
This was one of the earliest attempts at an in-depth analysis of the phenomenon of corporate art collecting. Martorella identifies the
historical and structural changes that set the stage for private firms’ transition from collecting almost no art to accumulating some of the
largest, most valuable art collections of any institution (museums included). She charts the rise of corporate art advisers, who navigate the
competing values of artists and corporations.
Moulin, Raymonde. 1987. The French art market: A sociological view. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers Univ. Press.
Originally published in French in 1967. This is a classic sociological study of an art market, written by one of the leading sociologists of art
of the author’s generation. Moulin observes how participants in the art market behave and analyzes these practices along a series of
typologies. A key contribution of the book, along with the identification of actor typologies, is the revelation that important features of the
modern art market were in existence much earlier than usually thought.
Velthuis, Olav. 2007. Talking prices: Symbolic meanings of prices on the market for contemporary art. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
Univ. Press.
Through extensive interviews with art trade participants in New York and Amsterdam as well as statistical analysis of market data, Velthuis
finds a highly ritualized practice of pricing contemporary works. Art dealers and experienced buyers understand that prices are a symbolic
language that speaks beyond the aesthetic or physical qualities of the piece. A high price on a work by a little-known artist could indicate,
e.g., prestigious provenance.
Velthuis, Olav, and Erica Coslor. 2012. The financialization of art. In The Oxford handbook of the sociology of finance. Edited by
Karen Knorr Cetina and Alex Preda, 471–487. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
What does it mean for “art” to be a standardized financial asset category? In addition to a clear presentation of the rise of finance in the art
market, Velthuis and Coslor offer a good summary of scholarly work on a number of related topics, including the scientization of art
investment instruments and the quantification and standardizing techniques that have occurred to make art comparable to finance.
Wong, Winnie. 2013. Van Gogh on demand: China and the readymade. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Wong sheds light on a fascinating area of the art market—the mass production of high-quality replicas of masterpieces. The author offers
an important extension of the social scientific literature on art markets by examining global circuits of artistic labor and consumption.
Wu, Chin-Tao. 2002. Privatising culture: Corporate intervention in the arts since the 1980s. London: Verso.
Wu examines the various ways in which private sector values and the free-market ethos have become woven into the visual arts world
since the 1980s. Tracing the rise of policies that encouraged the entry of major corporations into the cultural sphere, Wu shows how
government agencies such as the National Endowment for the Arts have supported the incorporation of business practices and ideals into
public arts agencies.
Sociological Approaches to Music
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Sociological research on artistic fields extends beyond visual art to music, literature, and the performing arts. Music sociology is one of the
oldest. Its initial development is rooted in the writings of Max Weber, Theodor Adorno, and W. E. B. Du Bois, who recognized in “sorrow
songs” the possibility of collective empowerment among African American slaves and their oppressed descendants. The literature has
developed via thinkers who extended systematic theories of culture in new directions. Martin 1995 and Martin 2006 set the stage for
modern sociology of music, whereas the seminal works of DeNora 1991 and DeNora 2000 have introduced important concepts, including
affordance and entrainment. Scholars in this field are empirically broad with respect to genre and social setting, whether industry (Peterson
1997), social movements (Eyerman and Jamison 1998), or urban ethnographic approaches (Grazian 2004).
DeNora, Tia. 1991. “Musical patronage and social change in Beethoven’s Vienna.” American Journal of Sociology 97:310–346.
The public performance of classical music changed in significant ways in early-18th-century Vienna, constituting an ideological shift toward
“serious” music. Using musical patronage as her primary case study, DeNora extends Pierre Bourdieu’s work on cultural consumption and
social status to examine how elites maintain cultural capital in the face of institutional ineffectiveness.
DeNora, Tia. 2000. Music in everyday life. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
DeNora argues that music constitutes “aesthetic” and “affective” agency, drawing on a series of case studies including how people use
music in everyday situations. Two important contributions of the book are the concept of entrainment, which DeNora defines as the
disciplining of bodily behavior based on social setting, and the argument that sound is a social material, an entity with agency that
structures spaces and practices.
Eyerman, Ron, and Andrew Jamison. 1998. Music and social movements. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Focusing on American social movements in the 20th century, Eyerman and Jamison treat music as a cognitive praxis that is essential for a
movement’s momentum and societal role. The authors argue that movements thrive on tradition and that music is an ideal medium for
tradition because it is evocative and familiar, yet sufficiently flexible to convey new ideas. The authors bring together social movement
theory and theories of cultural production and meaning.
Grazian, David. 2004. “Opportunities for ethnography in the sociology of music.” Poetics 32.3–4: 197–210.
A perceptive and accessible review of ethnographic research in music sociology, tracing this line of work to the Chicago school of urban
sociology in the 1930s. Grazian endorses further ethnographic developments and issues a call to scholars to devote more attention to three
neglected areas: the use of popular music to promote urban areas, the production of sound within culture industries, and everyday
consumption of music as it unfolds.
Martin, Peter J. 1995. Sounds and society: Themes in the sociology of music. Manchester, UK: Manchester Univ. Press.
In this seminal book, Martin outlines the principles of sociological analysis of music, arguing that the scholar’s task is to examine the social
setting and collective processes through which music is produced and people receive and respond to it. Empirically grounded in music, the
book also offers a nuanced theoretical framework for sociological study of cultural meaning more broadly.
Martin, Peter J. 2006. Music and the sociological gaze: Art worlds and cultural production. Manchester, UK: Manchester Univ.
Press.
Martin builds on his earlier work (Martin 1995), articulating a sociological approach to music by distinguishing its central tenets as separate
from those of musicology. Of great value is the author’s synthesis of the music sociology literature from the late 1990s and early 2000s, a
period that saw the development of key ideas and the flourishing of different approaches in the subfield.
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Peterson, Richard A. 1997. Creating country music: Fabricating authenticity. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
In this authoritative analysis of the social history of country music, Peterson unpacks the intersections of commercialism, culture, and the
myth of authenticity in the genre of country music. At the heart of this myth are tropes such as nature, small-town life, and working-class
roots. That few country stars can point to such a background is testimony to the industry’s success in fabricating an ideal.
Outsider Art
The term “Outsider Art” was coined by British art historian Roger Cardinal in 1972 to refer to artists without formal art training, producing
works that fall outside the material and aesthetic conventions of the art world. Cardinal developed the term from his study of “Art Brut” (“raw
art”), the genre established by Jean Dubuffet through his collection of artworks made by prisoners, mental health patients, and other
makers excluded from mainstream society. Allied terms now include “marginal art,” “naïve art,” “intuitive art,” and “self-taught.” From an
initial position at the periphery of the art world, Outsider Art in the early 21st century enjoys the features and supports of an established
genre, including dedicated museums, magazines, retrospectives, and auction events. This stimulates sociological investigation into status,
moral judgment, and evaluation mechanisms. For example, Ardery 1997 uses Bourdieu’s concept of disinterestedness to examine
“position-taking” among folk artists and outside artists. For Fine 2003, an important question is authenticity—how do self-taught artists
maintain an authentic identity even as they acquire the formal recognition as established artists? Maclagan 2009 provides a useful study of
the role of the marketplace in validating Outsider Art, whereas Dubin 1997 explores the tension between simultaneous insider and outsider
status. The contributions of Dubin 1997 and Zolberg 2015 to the subject are important, with the latter situating Outsider Art in a broader
social context of policy, public investment, and collective values.
Ardery, Julia. 1997. “Loser wins”: Outsider art and the salvaging of disinterestedness. Poetics 24: 329–346.
Based on interviews with Kentucky-based folk artists and institutional analysis of museums, vendors, and other institutions of “official
culture,” Ardery argues that the core virtues ascribed to Outsider Art—innocence, authenticity, and eccentricity—defined an alternative
model of credibility to that of New York, the capital of the contemporary art world.
Cardinal, Roger. 1972. Outsider Art. New York: Praeger.
This was the first book-length treatment of Art Brut in English, in which Cardinal creates and defines the term “Outsider Art.” The book is a
classic in art history and remains useful to sociologists of art for its historical discussion and study of twenty-nine self-taught makers.
Dubin, Steven. 1997. The centrality of marginality: naive artists and savvy supporters. In Zolberg, Vera L., and Joni Maya Cherbo,
eds. 1997. Outsider Art: Contesting boundaries in contemporary culture, 37–52. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
Marginality must be cultivated and controlled by “naive” artists, according to Dubin, for whom reputation is vulnerable to exploitation and
routinization. The author uses case studies of Jesse Howard, Lee Godie, and Henry Darger to identify different strategies by artists for
staying “outside” while also associating with “inside” institutions and individuals.
Fine, Gary Alan. 2003. Crafting authenticity: The validation of identity in self-taught art. Theory and Society 32.2: 152–180.
Developing the concept of identity art, Fine argues that the biographical features of the artist inform the market success of his or her works.
Authenticity is especially important in self-taught art because it is created from a marginalized position lacking the resources of elite art
world ties. Fine reveals the tension between “bio first” and “art first” perspectives, namely, those who promote biographical narrative versus
those who prioritize aesthetics before biography.
Maclagan, David. 2009. Outsider Art: From the margins to the marketplace. London: Reaktion.
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Once Outsider Art was established as a genre with its own history, features, and identity, questions arose about what counted as “outside”
and how to discern fakes from legitimate works. Maclagan examines the role of the marketplace in validating such works, demonstrating
the shared interest of the artists and market participants in maintaining sufficient distance to protect Outsider Art from the contamination of
commoditization.
Zolberg, Vera. 2015. Outsider Art: From the margins to the center? Sociologia & Antropologia 5.2: 501–514.
Important factors in shaping the nature of marginalization itself are not only the market, Zolberg argues, but also public policy and
government agencies. The extent to which self-taught or naïve artists are “outside” the established artistic conventions of a society
depends on these structural and cultural components. The author provides a useful update to sociology of art’s long-standing interest in the
relationship between art world insiders and outsiders.
Aesthetic Experience
Taste and Social Location
What is the relationship between artistic taste and class or social status (DiMaggio and Useem 1978)? Popular stereotypes distinguish
between “snobs” and “slobs,” meaning that elites favor the canonical fine arts, whereas working- and middle-class people prefer so-called
lowbrow culture. Sociologists have developed a more fine-grained analytical approach to the question. The ur-text is Bourdieu’s Distinction
(Bourdieu 1984, cited under Classic Works), which remains central to the discussion even as scholars have pushed against various
aspects of its conceptual framework. Halle 1996, Bryson 1996, and Chan and Goldthorpe 2007 all offer refinements of Bourdieu’s theory of
cultural capital. Banks 2010 generates original insights into specifically African American artistic consumption. Hennion 2007 introduces the
concept of attention to sociological studies of cultural consumption. Lizardo 2006 offers an innovative theory of taste influencing social
networks.
Banks, Patricia A. 2010. Represent: Art and identity among the black upper-middle class. New York: Routledge.
Banks identifies consumption patterns by upper-middle-class African Americans of art produced by African American artists. She argues
that participating in the African American art world—as buyer, patron, and aficionado—is a form of “black cultural capital” for the African
American middle class.
Bennett, Tony, Mike Savage, Elizabeth Silva, Alan Warde, Modesto Gayo-Cal, and David Wright. 2009. Culture, class, distinction.
Culture, economy, and the social. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Bennett and colleagues asks whether Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital is helpful for understanding artistic consumption and production
in modern Britain and sets out to replicate his influential study. Specifically, the authors attempt to detect cultural capital in action, in part by
examining the way in which cultural resources are organized. They challenge Bourdieu’s distinction between highbrow and lowbrow culture,
emphasizing instead the value of cultural omnivorousness among particular social groups.
Bryson, Bethany. 1996. “Anything but heavy metal”: Symbolic exclusions and musical dislikes. American Sociological Review
61.5: 884–899.
Bryson begins with a proposition: individuals use cultural taste to reinforce symbolic boundaries between themselves and categories of
people they dislike. Cultural tolerance should be understood as one aspect of multicultural capital, an extension of Bourdieu’s concept of
cultural capital. Challenging Bourdieu’s argument that taste is mainly determined by class, Bryson finds that musical dislikes also parallel
racial group conflict.
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Chan, Tak Wing, and John H. Goldthorpe. 2007. Social stratification and cultural consumption: The visual arts in England. Poetics
35:168–190.
Using data from the Arts in England survey, the authors look specifically at the visual arts, which are underrepresented in studies of cultural
consumption. The results offer qualified support for the omnivore–univore argument; it seems that individuals from higher social strata do
indeed consume more broadly in the visual arts.
DiMaggio, Paul, and Michael Useem. 1978. Social class and art consumption: The origins and consequences of class differences
in exposure to the arts in America. Theory and Society 5:141–161.
The authors examine the relationship between arts consumption and social status by aggregating 230 studies conducted in the United
States from 1960 to 1978. Following their analysis, they suggest four propositions regarding this relationship: (1) arts appreciation is
trained, (2) arts appreciation is contextual, (3) arts consumption enhances class cohesion, and (4) arts consumption is a form of cultural
capital.
Halle, David. 1996. Inside culture: Art and class in the American home. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Halle visited 160 homes in the New York City area, studying the kinds of “cultural artifacts”—artworks, family photos, religious objects, and
so forth—people choose for domestic decoration. Rejecting Bourdieu’s paradigm of cultural domination, Halle writes, “In the realm of artistic
choices, the most apparent differences are not between what can be called a dominant class and a dominated class, but between one
section of the dominant class and everyone else” (p. 196).
Hennion, Antoine. 2007. Those things that hold us together: Taste and sociology. Cultural Sociology 1:97–114.
Intent on clarifying our understanding of how taste preferences are formed in specific encounters between people and cultural goods,
Hennion advances a theory of “sociology of attention” to explain the specific processes involved in tasters’ efforts to become objects of
aesthetic experience. It is this self-management that constructs a stronger presence of the tasted object.
Lizardo, Omar. 2006. How cultural tastes shape personal networks. American Sociological Review 71.5: 778–807.
In this influential article, Lizardo flips the usual direction of sociological investigations into taste by asking whether such taste preferences in
turn shape people’s networks of friends and contacts. The article is important for revealing the specific mechanisms involved in translating
cultural competence into a network instrument and expanding networks.
Affect, Emotion, and Identity
Several publications have tried to specify meaning making as an affective phenomenon, involving emotions and intersubjectivity. This line
of inquiry extends sociological study of the autonomy of art by arguing that aesthetic experience is not reducible to properties of ideology
and institutional powers. Alexander 2008 develops the concept of iconicity, wherein certain images draw viewers into a deep encounter with
lasting effects on the person’s understanding of the social. Chong 2013 and Wohl 2015 have different approaches to the important question
of how artistic taste is consolidated and legitimated by collective processes, while for Benzecry 2011 the collective legitimation of an elite
cultural product—opera—takes place through shared emotional and physical experiences. Benzecry 2015 offers a way of thinking about
affective recalibration after a beloved cultural object is altered fundamentally.
Alexander, Jeffrey. 2008. Iconic experience in art and life: Surface/depth beginning with Giacometti’s Standing Woman. Theory,
Culture & Society 25.1: 1–19.
Alexander argues that people understand themselves in their surroundings through encounters with art. This happens through “iconic
experience,” wherein the aesthetic object has become a signifier for all such things. The material qualities of the object, meanwhile, draw
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the viewers deep into the meaning of the piece.
Benzecry, Claudio. 2011. The opera fanatic: Ethnography of an obsession. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
The key contribution of Benzecry’s book is the distillation of the process of fan-formation, drawing on rich qualitative data generated
through extensive fieldwork at the Colón Opera House in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In addition to revealing a counterintuitive empirical story
(lowbrow people consuming highbrow culture), Benzecry greatly extends our understanding of how aesthetic taste is cultivated through
bodily, social, and sensorial experiences.
Benzecry, Claudio. 2015. Restabilizing attachment to cultural objects: Aesthetics, emotions and biography. The British Journal of
Sociology 66.4: 779–800.
Focused empirically on opera and football jerseys, Benzecry argues that people actively distance themselves from the changed object by
continuing to vouch for the superiority of the unaltered original. The finding has implications for our understanding of how threats to beloved
cultural artifacts are weathered and rebuffed by actors (the fans or “consumers” of the artifacts).
Chong, Philippa. 2013. Legitimate judgment in art, the scientific world reversed? Maintaining critical distance in evaluation.
Social Studies of Science 43.2: 265–281.
Chong asks whether subjectivity is a valued epistemic feature in evaluating art. Objectivity—subjectivity’s opposite—has long been a core
topic in the field of science and technology studies (STS). Scientific activity—experimentation, observation, findings, and claims making—
traditionally mobilizes objectivity as the only legitimate standpoint from which humans can generate knowledge. Chong extends the
literature on objectivity into the realm of art.
DeNora, Tia. 2003. After Adorno: Rethinking music sociology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
This is a landmark work in developing an understanding of what artworks make possible—or what they “afford.” DeNora argues that, of all
artistic forms, music is at the center of emotion construction and operates on listeners through specific mechanisms that alter disposition
and mood. As such, music is a crucial pivot point between consciousness and social action. The concept of affordances is highly influential
in the sociology of culture literature.
Wohl, Hannah. 2015. Community sense: The cohesive power of aesthetic judgment. Sociological Theory 33.4: 299–326.
Wohl extends sociological work on aesthetic judgment by examining the cohesive properties of judgment as a collective process.
Empirically focused on an erotic arts club called “The Salon,” Wohl shows how club members’ communication with each other about
specific works both identified and maintained the standards of good taste within erotica and marked their community boundaries.
Censorship and Controversy
Since the 1980s, increased scholarly attention has been focused on negative consumption of cultural objects—specifically, censorship,
protest, and scandal. Dubin 1992 offered one of the first in-depth sociological examinations of art controversies, influential for
conceptualizing such episodes as processes of symbolic struggle. Following this approach, Tepper 2011 provides empirical evidence of the
intersection of local social instability and cultural objects in public protests over art. Adut 2009 theorizes the anatomy of art scandals,
whereas Beisel 1993 uses a case of art censorship in late-19th-century New York City to reassess Bourdieu’s theory of cultural capital and
class-based tastes.
Adut, Ari. 2009. On scandal: Moral disturbances in society, politics and art. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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Adut’s main interest is in the social construction of scandal. He identifies three constituent elements: a transgression, a publicizer (the critic
who denounces the transgression), and a public audience that is invested in the story. His discussion of the art world (chapter 6,
“Provocation in Art”) offers a nuanced explanation of the relationship between scandal and the production of new modes of artistic
expression.
Beisel, Nicola. 1993. Morals versus art: Censorship, the politics of interpretation, and the Victorian nude. American Sociological
Review 58.2: 145–162.
In conversation with Dubin’s conceptualization of art controversy, Beisel argues a different theoretical position. Art censorship is not always
explainable as the outcome of social cleavages between highbrow consumers and lowbrow products. Beisel recasts art censorship as a
struggle for interpretive authority in which participants draw on cultural schemata to impose a reading of a cultural object and thereby
position themselves socially.
Dubin, Steven C. 1992. Arresting images: Impolitic art and uncivil actions. New York: Routledge.
Dubin focuses on art controversies in the 1980s in the United States, a period that saw vigorous debates about federal funding for the arts
and public support for artworks that offend collective values or institutional norms. Dubin argues that these debates were about much more
than art; they highlighted social cleavages between estranged groups or individuals, in particular, “symbolic deviants” (artists) pushing
normative boundaries.
Tepper, Steven J. 2011. Not here, not now, not that! Protest over art and culture in America. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
Tepper examines 805 cases, spanning seventy-one US cities, involving public protests over cultural objects. Asking why the same cultural
object might be received uneventfully in one city but protested forcefully in another, seemingly similar, city, he tries to identify the social
conditions that give rise to public disputes over art. He finds that such disputes correspond to social change at the local level. The cases
include a range of artistic objects including literature, plays, and visual and performance art.
Materiality and Perception
Research in this area has attempted to disentangle the intersecting ways in which objects contribute to aesthetic experience. A body of
work referred to as “materiality studies” is tackling the problem by concentrating on the physical components of cultural objects. This
interest in the agency of things is not in the Gellian sense of artworks having an independent effect on viewers, although that perspective
remains important in some parts of the field; rather, the interest is in the mutability of the base elements that comprise a work—the wood,
ink, paper, canvas, and so forth. Mukerji 1994 recognized early that this line of inquiry is best undertaken by building on tools and concepts
from several subfields. One of these is science and technology studies (STS), a subfield linkage developed further by Griswold, et al. 2013.
McDonnell 2016 reveals the unintended meanings of objects as their physical components age and as people find new and creative uses
for them. The museum is the site of choice for examining multisensory perception (Hetherington 2003) and material mutability (Domínguez
Rubio 2014). Others have moved forward the cultural sociological interest in perception by identifying multisensorial meaning making
through smell and touch (Zubrzycki 2011), sound (Klett 2014), and color (Rose-Greenland 2016).
Domínguez Rubio, Fernando. 2014. Preserving the unpreservable: Docile and unruly objects at MoMA. Theory and Society 43.6:
617–645.
Try as they may to conserve all artworks, museum conservators face unique challenges when it comes to contemporary art. Based on
ethnographic research in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Domínguez Rubio argues that the mutable physical qualities of
artworks shape museum staff members’ work.
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Griswold, Wendy, Gemma Mangione, and Terence McDonnell. 2013. Objects, words, and bodies in space: Bringing materiality into
cultural analysis. Qualitative Sociology 36:343–364.
This article moves forward the sociological investigation of how museum visitors understand and interpret artworks. Insisting that symbols
and the visual image are only part of the meaning-making process, the authors concentrate on the physical experience of art. Two concepts
—physical position and cognitive location—specify the phenomenon of emplacement.
Hetherington, Kevin. 2003. Accountability and disposal: Visual impairment and the museum. Museum and Society 1:104–115.
Hetherington focuses on nonvisual modes of perceiving and responding to art and museum objects, including the “touch tour” as a way of
making available object-based knowledge to visually impaired visitors. Arguing for an expanded role for museums in accommodating
disabled visitors’ needs, the author theorizes accountability and disposal as key concepts for museums to incorporate in their practices.
Klett, Joseph. 2014. Sound on sound: Situating interaction in sonic object settings. Sociological Theory 32.2: 147–161.
This article offers an innovative approach to the sociological study of sound. Klett treats sound as a material object and develops the
concept of “sonic object setting” to study its production and reception in social contexts. The audibility of sonic objects is shown to be the
outcome of dynamic material arrangements. Audibility is thus collective and structured, rather than individualized and static.
McDonnell, Terence. 2016. Best laid plans. Cultural entropy and the unraveling of AIDS media campaigns. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Cultural objects are made with an intended meaning that can change in ways unforeseen by the objects’ makers. Why this occurs and with
what consequences is McDonnell’s enquiry, focused empirically on AIDS prevention media campaigns in Accra, Ghana. The payoff for
sociology of art is twofold: an innovative theory of cultural entropy, or the material decomposition and recomposition of objects; and a
dynamic framework of reception situated in a social location typically neglected by sociologists of culture.
Mukerji, Chandra. 1994. Toward a sociology of material culture: Science studies, cultural studies and the meaning of things. In
The sociology of culture: Emerging theoretical perspectives. Edited by Diana Crane, 143–162. Oxford: Blackwell.
Mukerji argues that sociologists of culture overlook the significance of the physical components of a work in creating an aesthetic
experience. She draws on multiple theoretical traditions to sketch a methodological and conceptual approach to a sociology of material
culture.
Rose-Greenland, Fiona. 2016. Color perception in sociology: Materiality and authenticity at the Gods in Color show. Sociological
Theory 34.2: 81–105.
Color is a central feature of social life, yet its value in sociological theory is ambiguous. This paper establishes an approach to a social
theory of color by focusing on color perception. Using theories from materiality studies and cultural sociology, the author argues that color
perception is an unstable and contestable phenomenon shaped by social and material factors. The paper has broader implications for
sociological work on authenticity, conservation disputes, and aesthetic knowledge.
Zubrzycki, Geneviève. 2011. History and the national sensorium: Making sense of Polish mythology. Qualitative Sociology 34:21–
57.
Zubrzycki develops the concept of a collective sensorium, a body of aesthetic artifacts that are circulated and encountered in such a way
that they engender intense, multisensorial responses in viewers and users. The article is important for those interested in the emerging
method of historical ethnography and is now a key work for sociological investigations into the relationship between sense experiences,
material objects, and group identities.
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