Theories about the relationship between Art & Society
(Socio-historic dimensions)
References to Readings Today:
Becker, Howard. “Art Worlds", and
Bourdieu, Pierre. "Who Creates the
'Creator'?” & "The Circle of Belief”
Inglis, David. “Thinking ‘Art’
Sociologically”
Mitchell, W.J.T. “Offending Images..”
Recommended:
Becker “The power of inertia”
Bill Viola “Crossings” (detail)
Course Organization


Handout 1: Syllabus and Preliminary Reading List
Resources (on web)


http://webdav.sfu.ca/web/cmns/courses/2011/488
note
 Importance
of attendance & participation
 Proper use of citations to acknowledge sources
Finding out about artistic events
& issues

Library Resources:
 Music
:
http://www.lib.sfu.ca/researchhelp/subjectguides/fpa/music.htm
 Dance
http://www.lib.sfu.ca/researchhelp/subjectguides/fpa/dance.htm
 Visual Arts
http://www.lib.sfu.ca/researchhelp/subjectguides/fpa/visarts.htm
Other Sources
Cultural Sections of papers like The Georgia
Straight
 broader: Sunday New York Times -- Arts and
Leisure Section (in library)
 Other magazines and journals devoted to the arts
 Web sites, blogs etc… showcasing art,
ex. http://www.agitart.org/

A few events in Vancouver this week: “art, revolution and ownership”
Swarm 12– Public Open-house of Artist-Run
Centres—Sept 8 & 9

http://swarm.paarc.ca/
“The Pacific Association of
Artist-Run Centres will hold
their annual festival, Swarm,
to mark the kick-off of
Vancouver’s artist-run
centre programming season.
Two nights full of gallery
hopping, public projects,
and artist collectives will
leave you feeling inspired.
Swarm is always a fun party
and a great way to connect
with our alternative art
scene.”
Some “Common-sense” approaches to
Art (Artist)/Society Relations

Art as
 historical
record (events, practices, values)-- notion of
Zeitgeist (spirit of the time) or mentalities
 Measure of civilization (with predictable stages of
“development”)
 Predictor or instigator of socio-political or cultural change
(theories of the avant-garde)
Some “Common-sense” approaches to
Art/Society Relations
Art as historical record (events, practices, values)-notion of Zeitgeist (spirit of the time) or mentalities
Measure of civilization (with predictable stages of “development”)
Ex. representation of perspective in neo-classical painting. Jacques Louis
David c. 1889. The lictors bringing to Brutus the bodies of his sons
Predictor or instigator of change
(theories of the avant-garde)
Pink Bloque (2001-2005) Dancing in Dissent protesting racism & sexism at street
dances http://www.pinkbloque.org/
Disciplinary Differences: Internal
vs. External Approaches

“internal” (humanities) -- arts outside social
processes
 Artist=solitary
creator, exceptional genius (humanistic
approach)
 Arts, aesthetics as “universal”

“external” (social sciences & interdisciplinary
approaches) --art world(s) socially constructed
 importance
of social context, processes & structures for
understanding the production/creation, mediation &
reception/consumption of the arts, recognition
processes, their uses, functions, meanings
Theories of Art and Society (Different
Intellectual Traditions & Roots)
 Humanistic
disciplines (history, literary studies)
Formerly --great events, individuals, canons
 Some interdisciplinary (ex. Cultural studies)
 Iconographic & formalist frameworks

 Visual

and Performing Arts
perspective of art-makers & critics
 Anthropology
functions of the arts & symbolic representations, “others”
 ex. Religious, ritual

 Psychology

cognition & perception
 Philosophy

Aesthetics, knowledge etc.
& Communications –many approaches (focus of
the course)
 Sociology
Some “Internal”
Debates: “What is Art?
Who Are Artists?”

emphasis on


Gifts, talent, innate
characteristics, vision (of
Artists)
expression of eternal
“truths” (artists, publics)


Ex. Notion that Greek Aesthetic
Values (like Ideals of Beauty
& Bodily Proportions) express
universals
Relations to natural world or
“real) through material or
embodied practices


Mimesis (representation)
Imitatio (simulation, copy)
Artists presentations of the relations of
their work to social issues & institutions
Three examples:

Cai Guo-Qiang interview: Art:21(Art in the 21st Century)
PBS

If time: Olympic Ceremony Controversy (enhancement of Cai Guo-Qiangs’s Footprints of
History” firework performance



http://blog.art21.org/2008/08/22/cai-guo-qiang-responds-to-olympics-fireworks-controversy/
Olafur Eliasson
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKl0tb3VmfQ
Taryn Simon on her creative practices

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKl0tb3VmfQ
Internal Approaches - Systems
of ranking art forms:
– avant-garde vs. traditionalists etc.
– Subjects or content (ex. French Academy
rankings by categories: history of religious,
landscape, portrait, still life, genre)
– Medium (ex. visual arts: painting, sculpture,
architecture, photography, performance art,
conceptual art etc.)
– Styles, tastes and genres
– Socio-political or ideological criteria (art for art’s
sake, social realism, arts activism etc.)
Internal Approaches - Genres,
stylistic movements, forms of expression
 Canons –essential components of dominant art system,
influential artworks that participants must know &
understand
 More recently: “The New Art History” & cultural
studies in the humanities (differs from social scientific
interpretations
• place of social & historical processes in defining art &
what/who gets included in canons
What is art? Who decides?
Ex. Marcel Duchamp--Readymade Sculptures vs. conventional
techniques (challenging definitions of what is art and who decides)
Fountain, original (left) and recreations of lost 1917 “Original”
Who decides what is art?– the artist, experts, publics??
Other Examples of Challenges to “the Canon” &
Authority
(l.)Leonardo DaVinci’s so-called Mona Lisa c. 1503; (r.) Marcel
Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q, 1920 for a Paris Dada show.
Non-western cultural traditions
(l.)Leonardo DaVinci’s so-called Mona Lisa c. 1503; (r.)Book cover
from Cultural Studies for Beginners by Sardar & Van Loon.
Rethinking institutionalized exclusionary
practices: “Differencing the Canon”

Guerilla Girls poster
References to Artistic Canons as way of establishing
credibility & authority within art worlds
Jean August Dominique Ingres, Grande Odalisque (1814), oil on canvas.
Another Example
Manet Olympia 1863
.
Yasumasa Morimura—Appropriation art Twins
“External” Approaches to Thinking
about Art/Society Relations
 art
should be contextualized (situated in social, political & historic
contexts)
 search for patterns rather than exceptions
What do successful artists have in common?
 What characteristics do fans share?
 How do artistic institutions or networks function?
 What do the arts have to do with economics, politics and culture?
 Can the arts redress injustices, help people recover from trauma,
communicate values that change the world?

External Approaches
 Often
a wider range of art forms studied (not just high
culture but also pop culture, folk culture, outsider art,
etc..)
 Stronger focus on institutions & processes of
 Production-creation
• (training, collaboration networks etc.)
 Mediation
• (gatekeepers, facilitators etc.)
 Reception,
consumption
• (tastes, audiences, publics, markets)
Importance of social processes for recognition of
the arts & artists: Visitors to the Louvre Museum in front of Mona Lisa (old
hanging)
Artists, the arts and society—
Recognition processes

Banksy & museums as authorities
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lW-
rt3jyZU8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZK7D6
WqzR0
Early Social Scientific Approaches to the study of
Art/Society Relations

Art and Society

Art History & Criticism (Interpretation of artworks as symbolic forms
with cultural meanings) : Erwin Panofsky, Arnold Hauser, Pierre
Francastel, John Berger, etc..


Art in Society



Marxist Traditions : T. Adorno, W. Benjamin, Heidigger (Francfort School), H. J. Jauss
(School of Constance), Janet Wolff, Lucien Goldmann,
practices & institutions such as patronage, connoisseurship,
publics, fans (M. Baxandahl, T.J. Clark etc.)
styles as social networks (M. Schapiro, C. Ginzburg)
Art as Society
Variety of “external” approaches
Different degrees of importance of “social
construction of reality”
 Debates about symbolic vs. material
dimensions
 Varied assumptions about society & how to
study it
 Examples: two different approaches
Becker & Bourdieu

Pierre Bourdieu—


Marxist, critical theorist
Emphasis on


Social and political structures & material conditions as limits to
freedom of agency
Power relations within the field of artistic production




1930-2002
Creation of belief in the power of symbolic goods (art, artistic
reputations etc.) and their conversion into economic and social
capital
Core notions: Habitus, field of cultural production (history &
position in it), domination, distinction (taste & class), praxis, doxa
hierarchical model
Relationships marked by class conflict and power struggles
Howard Becker

Symbolic interactionist
 http://home.earthlink.net/~hsbecker/

Early work on labeling theory and social actors (a different
way of thinking of agency)
Emphasis on
 Sense-making (interpretive)
 Human interaction & identity-formation
 Consensus & conventions
 Art-making as a collective activity
 Notion of different types of “art worlds”
Strong sociological background but also a performing
artist (jazz musician)


“Many people know that I used to play the piano for a living, in taverns, for dances,
weddings, bar mitzvas, Safeway employees Christmas parties, and so on. Here is a
picture of the Bobby Laine Trio, circa 1950 (Bobby Laine, tenor; Dominic Jaconetti,
drums; Howie Becker, piano), performing at the 504 Club, which was located at 504
W. 63rd St. in Chicago” from Howie Becker’s homepage
Art & Political Representations
Debates regarding what art is
considered to “represent”

Example related to History of Visual Arts
 rendering
of “reality” (nature), mimesis
 as world view in a specific place & time
 as product of solitary genius (Renaissance)
 made by “system” of production & reception
 as social process (symbolic & material)
Critiques of Externalist/Internalist
Stances


extreme reductionism vs extreme formalism
(Scylla & Charybdis metaphor)
reductionism
 art
reduced to social process (ignores specific
characteristics of aesthetic forces)

Formalism
 focus
on limited range of aesthetic qualities --ignores
importance of social processes & context
Recent Controversy over what art represents
(EU public art project--Brussels)
L-“The sculpture resembles a giant model kit
with snap-out pieces.” (CBC)
R-“Romania is depicted as a vampire theme
park.” (CBC)
See also CBC coverage (link) Jan 14 2009
British (Telegraph) coverage and video
Bulgaria as a toilet link
Theories about changes in ideas about
what art represents over time (Jurt)
rendering
of “reality” (nature), mimesis, imitatio
as world view in a specific place & time
as product of solitary genius (Renaissance)
Artists’ vision (19th romanticism)
made by “system” of production & reception
Socio-political processes (symbolic & material)
“Externalist” Views
 art
should be contextualized (situate in social & historic contexts)
 search for patterns (regularity) rather than exceptions
What do successful artists have in common?
 What do fans share?
 How do institutions function?

 wider
range of art forms studied (high culture, pop culture etc..)
 Stronger focus on institutions & processes of
 Production-creation
• (training, collaboration networks etc.)
 Mediation
• (gatekeepers, facilitators etc.)
 Reception,
consumption
• (tastes, audiences, publics, markets)
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.
If time….
Art & Society 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/