Cultural Entrepreneurship & Innovation Author: Huisingh
Summary of articles, slides, and lecture notes
Week 1 Cultural Markets
Highbrow/ high culture cultural products (mainly in arts) held in the highest esteem by a culture.
High cultured or intellectual.
Lowbrow/ low culture forms of popular culture that have mass appeal. Popular culture consists
of cultural products that are within the mainstream (everyday lives) of a given culture – influenced
by mass media.
Entrepreneurship innovation & risk. Also: see slide 21.
Great Entrepreneurs See slides lecture 1.2 & notes lecture.
Article 1.1 Bradshaw & Holbrook (2007) Remembering Chet: theorizing the mythology of the self-
destructive bohemian artist as self-producer and self-consumer in the market for romanticism
Historically grounding the iconic self-destructing artist as an inheritance from Romanticism, we
consider the competing career orientations arising from the contradictory demands for musicians to
produce aesthetic (schoon/mooi/gevoelig) experiences for an audience of experts, cognoscenti, or
devoted fans while also facing the need to earn cash in the mass market constituted by non-experts.
This conceptualization gives rise to a framing of the ideal bohemian musician as self-producer and
self-consumer. In marketing terms, pure bohemia entails both the production and consumption of
one’s own artistic genius and aesthetic experience.
But unfortunately – pushing the artist past the need to scuffle to make a living – the market, geared
to Romantic expectations, may demand an additional component of self-destruction.
What role, if any, has the market or the culture of consumption played in such tragic outcomes (self
destruction)? How does the distinction between artistic producer and aesthetic consumer – or the
collapse of this distinction – shape the pattern of martyr-like self-destruction? What guilt for the
early demise of artistic geniuses in jazz must perhaps be borne by the marketplace of cultural
consumers?
Can we contextualize the sad story of Chet Baker within a broader market-based understanding of
the role played by an artist within the culture of consumption and within the consumption of culture
as both a producer and a consumer of the artistic enterprise?
A fundamental contradiction in art:
- On one hand, musicians are expected to create music that is oppositional, autonomous, and
innovative – thereby pleasing themselves above all else while simultaneously satisfying the
romantic ideal of art by inducing a profound state of aesthetic contemplation or even
ecstatic rapture. (artistic)
- On the other hand, they are forced to create music that – bound by mundane realities – will
raise the cash needed to sustain their professional careers by putting food on the table.
(commercial)
How the artist negotiates this precarious trade-off tends to position the resulting creative offering at
one or another level on the bohemianism dimension.
1
,Bohemia refers to musicians or other artists who perform primarily for themselves as expert self-
consumers seeking to maximize their own profound aesthetic experience as an audience for the
consumption of their own playing. (artistic or creative focus / producer ánd consumer).
Alienation At the other extreme, a term such as alienation would refer to music made purely for
the commercial pursuit of a monetary reward and aimed at an audience of non-expert consumers
who have no special knowledge of the art form, who are cultivated for the dollars they can provide
rather than for the sincere appreciation they can bestow, and who will respond favourably to the
music only if it is dumbed down in ways that make it easily accessible. (commercial focus).
Scuffling many artists escape these extremes by settling for some form of scuffling that preserves
a degree of artistic integrity while managing to make ends meet in a way that will avoid starvation.
Often such struggles involve moonlighting at a second job such as giving music lessons, playing in a
pit band, doubling as a dog walker, or working part-time at H&R Block.
Pure bohemia (the equation of the artistic producer and aesthetic consumer) can involve but does
not necessarily involve self-destruction.
For musicians, the major challenge lies in overcoming the fundamental contradiction between
producer-as-consumer (pure bohemianism through creative integrity) and consumer-as-producer
(pure alienation through pandering). In other words, their challenge is to achieve some degree of
self-actualization as an artist who can satisfy the bohemian expectation of autonomous production
but who nonetheless manages to survive or even thrive rather than self-destruct.
Why does the public find the myth of artistic self-destruction so appealing?
We are inspired by musicians who are seen to resist the market in favour of bohemian ideals – even
at the expense of artistic self-destruction – because therein lies the possibility, for us Romantic
consumers, of complete market emancipation and abstention from bourgeois conformity.
Conclusion:
By Remembering Chet and all those other artists who have tragically self-destructed, they hope to
encourage marketing theorists to recognize the negative impact of a marketized aesthetic domain on
its cultural producers – namely, the human cost. We should not fail to explore the dark side of art
and aesthetics – that’s why the article has demonstrated the importance of Remembering Chat.
Playing By Heart – that is, producing for one’s own consumption, performing purely for the sake of
one’s own profound aesthetic experience – is exactly what the true artist wants to do and, more
importantly, should do for the sake of artistic integrity and thereby for the benefit of society.
But: How does society feed, clothe, and shelter the true artist so that the Bohemian ideal of
performer-as-audience does not succumb to the sullying struggles of sublunary subsistence?
Examples self-destructive artists:
- Musicians in Rock: Amy Winehouse – see notes lecture.
- Musicians in Pop: Michael Jackson
- Musicians in RnB/Soul: Whitney Houston.
Article 1.2 Dubois (2012) Recognition and renown, the structure of cultural markets: evidence from
French poetry
This article explores the organization of cultural markets through the case of French contemporary
poetry, distinguishing the market for recognition and the wider market for renown. The market of
poetry is made of large-scale and reputed publishers and a wide range of smaller firms, which serve
2
, as testing grounds for new authors and innovation. How can the movement of an a priori narrow-
appeal literary genre from small publishing houses to large-scale firms be explained? It is argued
that if the status of firms is remarkably stable, artists may move from small publishers to large-scale
ones. Statistical evidence is used to illustrate this passage, shedding a new light on the structure of
cultural markets and the role of reputation in organizing commercial circuits.
Recognition the reputation an artist enjoys within his or her original world of art. Minor
publishers; want to publish poetry.
Renown the extension of the artist’s reputation beyond his or her world of art. Major publishers;
who increase reputation of artists and their own popularity.
Introduction:
Cultural industries are organized according to an oligopoly fringe model in which large businesses
dominate the bulk of the market, leaving the niches they deem insufficiently profitable to small
firms.
Sociologists insist on genre distinctions and the division of the literary field into two distinct poles of
Production:
- The ‘‘pole of restricted production’’ creates highbrow literature and is governed by
concerns about artistic purity.
- The ‘‘large-scale production pole’’ focused on mass-market literature.
According to this model, large firms invest in artistic products whose conventions are widely
shared, while smaller firms focus on genres that are of limited appeal. The artistic forms and
reputations of limited appeal tend to relegate innovative, artistic works to niche markets,
while broadly shared conventions can lead to the larger market (80/20 principle: 80% of the
market is dominated by 20% or less of firms).
However, empirical studies have shown that the genres of seemingly smaller appeal can reach the
core of the market by gaining consecration.
Purpose article to look closely at the structure of cultural markets and at the circulation of works
between these two poles. What explains the movement of a literary genre of narrow appeal from
small publishing houses to large-scale firms? (answer: reputation…)
Focussing on French poetry, this article argues that looking at the ways in which reputation is
constructed within a world of art offers a better understanding of such movements.
The genre of poetry does not move from small-scale to large-scale publishers, though individual
poets do: the status of publishers is remarkably stable over time, whereas poets may gain in
reputation and move from small firms to large and high-status publishers. These moves make sense
in terms of the distinction between recognition and renown.
The central argument here is that the structure of markets corresponds to that of reputations, which
array themselves according to the two stages of recognition and renown.
Reputation is a category of collective thought, a perception. It has meaning only when shared. It
emerges from a collective effort that positions individuals within a common space through the use of
a ‘label’. Recognition occurs in small, specialized circles where the economic power of businesses
counts for little. Renown comes to the artist whose name goes beyond the circles of the initiated to
enter into History, that arbiter who ‘‘assigns recognition to posterity’’. Renown is at the heart of the
sociology and the economics of art, since that is where we find the names and works that will enter
the canon.
3
Summary of articles, slides, and lecture notes
Week 1 Cultural Markets
Highbrow/ high culture cultural products (mainly in arts) held in the highest esteem by a culture.
High cultured or intellectual.
Lowbrow/ low culture forms of popular culture that have mass appeal. Popular culture consists
of cultural products that are within the mainstream (everyday lives) of a given culture – influenced
by mass media.
Entrepreneurship innovation & risk. Also: see slide 21.
Great Entrepreneurs See slides lecture 1.2 & notes lecture.
Article 1.1 Bradshaw & Holbrook (2007) Remembering Chet: theorizing the mythology of the self-
destructive bohemian artist as self-producer and self-consumer in the market for romanticism
Historically grounding the iconic self-destructing artist as an inheritance from Romanticism, we
consider the competing career orientations arising from the contradictory demands for musicians to
produce aesthetic (schoon/mooi/gevoelig) experiences for an audience of experts, cognoscenti, or
devoted fans while also facing the need to earn cash in the mass market constituted by non-experts.
This conceptualization gives rise to a framing of the ideal bohemian musician as self-producer and
self-consumer. In marketing terms, pure bohemia entails both the production and consumption of
one’s own artistic genius and aesthetic experience.
But unfortunately – pushing the artist past the need to scuffle to make a living – the market, geared
to Romantic expectations, may demand an additional component of self-destruction.
What role, if any, has the market or the culture of consumption played in such tragic outcomes (self
destruction)? How does the distinction between artistic producer and aesthetic consumer – or the
collapse of this distinction – shape the pattern of martyr-like self-destruction? What guilt for the
early demise of artistic geniuses in jazz must perhaps be borne by the marketplace of cultural
consumers?
Can we contextualize the sad story of Chet Baker within a broader market-based understanding of
the role played by an artist within the culture of consumption and within the consumption of culture
as both a producer and a consumer of the artistic enterprise?
A fundamental contradiction in art:
- On one hand, musicians are expected to create music that is oppositional, autonomous, and
innovative – thereby pleasing themselves above all else while simultaneously satisfying the
romantic ideal of art by inducing a profound state of aesthetic contemplation or even
ecstatic rapture. (artistic)
- On the other hand, they are forced to create music that – bound by mundane realities – will
raise the cash needed to sustain their professional careers by putting food on the table.
(commercial)
How the artist negotiates this precarious trade-off tends to position the resulting creative offering at
one or another level on the bohemianism dimension.
1
,Bohemia refers to musicians or other artists who perform primarily for themselves as expert self-
consumers seeking to maximize their own profound aesthetic experience as an audience for the
consumption of their own playing. (artistic or creative focus / producer ánd consumer).
Alienation At the other extreme, a term such as alienation would refer to music made purely for
the commercial pursuit of a monetary reward and aimed at an audience of non-expert consumers
who have no special knowledge of the art form, who are cultivated for the dollars they can provide
rather than for the sincere appreciation they can bestow, and who will respond favourably to the
music only if it is dumbed down in ways that make it easily accessible. (commercial focus).
Scuffling many artists escape these extremes by settling for some form of scuffling that preserves
a degree of artistic integrity while managing to make ends meet in a way that will avoid starvation.
Often such struggles involve moonlighting at a second job such as giving music lessons, playing in a
pit band, doubling as a dog walker, or working part-time at H&R Block.
Pure bohemia (the equation of the artistic producer and aesthetic consumer) can involve but does
not necessarily involve self-destruction.
For musicians, the major challenge lies in overcoming the fundamental contradiction between
producer-as-consumer (pure bohemianism through creative integrity) and consumer-as-producer
(pure alienation through pandering). In other words, their challenge is to achieve some degree of
self-actualization as an artist who can satisfy the bohemian expectation of autonomous production
but who nonetheless manages to survive or even thrive rather than self-destruct.
Why does the public find the myth of artistic self-destruction so appealing?
We are inspired by musicians who are seen to resist the market in favour of bohemian ideals – even
at the expense of artistic self-destruction – because therein lies the possibility, for us Romantic
consumers, of complete market emancipation and abstention from bourgeois conformity.
Conclusion:
By Remembering Chet and all those other artists who have tragically self-destructed, they hope to
encourage marketing theorists to recognize the negative impact of a marketized aesthetic domain on
its cultural producers – namely, the human cost. We should not fail to explore the dark side of art
and aesthetics – that’s why the article has demonstrated the importance of Remembering Chat.
Playing By Heart – that is, producing for one’s own consumption, performing purely for the sake of
one’s own profound aesthetic experience – is exactly what the true artist wants to do and, more
importantly, should do for the sake of artistic integrity and thereby for the benefit of society.
But: How does society feed, clothe, and shelter the true artist so that the Bohemian ideal of
performer-as-audience does not succumb to the sullying struggles of sublunary subsistence?
Examples self-destructive artists:
- Musicians in Rock: Amy Winehouse – see notes lecture.
- Musicians in Pop: Michael Jackson
- Musicians in RnB/Soul: Whitney Houston.
Article 1.2 Dubois (2012) Recognition and renown, the structure of cultural markets: evidence from
French poetry
This article explores the organization of cultural markets through the case of French contemporary
poetry, distinguishing the market for recognition and the wider market for renown. The market of
poetry is made of large-scale and reputed publishers and a wide range of smaller firms, which serve
2
, as testing grounds for new authors and innovation. How can the movement of an a priori narrow-
appeal literary genre from small publishing houses to large-scale firms be explained? It is argued
that if the status of firms is remarkably stable, artists may move from small publishers to large-scale
ones. Statistical evidence is used to illustrate this passage, shedding a new light on the structure of
cultural markets and the role of reputation in organizing commercial circuits.
Recognition the reputation an artist enjoys within his or her original world of art. Minor
publishers; want to publish poetry.
Renown the extension of the artist’s reputation beyond his or her world of art. Major publishers;
who increase reputation of artists and their own popularity.
Introduction:
Cultural industries are organized according to an oligopoly fringe model in which large businesses
dominate the bulk of the market, leaving the niches they deem insufficiently profitable to small
firms.
Sociologists insist on genre distinctions and the division of the literary field into two distinct poles of
Production:
- The ‘‘pole of restricted production’’ creates highbrow literature and is governed by
concerns about artistic purity.
- The ‘‘large-scale production pole’’ focused on mass-market literature.
According to this model, large firms invest in artistic products whose conventions are widely
shared, while smaller firms focus on genres that are of limited appeal. The artistic forms and
reputations of limited appeal tend to relegate innovative, artistic works to niche markets,
while broadly shared conventions can lead to the larger market (80/20 principle: 80% of the
market is dominated by 20% or less of firms).
However, empirical studies have shown that the genres of seemingly smaller appeal can reach the
core of the market by gaining consecration.
Purpose article to look closely at the structure of cultural markets and at the circulation of works
between these two poles. What explains the movement of a literary genre of narrow appeal from
small publishing houses to large-scale firms? (answer: reputation…)
Focussing on French poetry, this article argues that looking at the ways in which reputation is
constructed within a world of art offers a better understanding of such movements.
The genre of poetry does not move from small-scale to large-scale publishers, though individual
poets do: the status of publishers is remarkably stable over time, whereas poets may gain in
reputation and move from small firms to large and high-status publishers. These moves make sense
in terms of the distinction between recognition and renown.
The central argument here is that the structure of markets corresponds to that of reputations, which
array themselves according to the two stages of recognition and renown.
Reputation is a category of collective thought, a perception. It has meaning only when shared. It
emerges from a collective effort that positions individuals within a common space through the use of
a ‘label’. Recognition occurs in small, specialized circles where the economic power of businesses
counts for little. Renown comes to the artist whose name goes beyond the circles of the initiated to
enter into History, that arbiter who ‘‘assigns recognition to posterity’’. Renown is at the heart of the
sociology and the economics of art, since that is where we find the names and works that will enter
the canon.
3
