Literature week 37. Sociology about art, introduction
Art holds a paradoxical position of being marginalized and omnipresent at the same time, depending
on how we define the category of art. On the one hand, the arts meaning Western, bourgeois,
canonized fine art, have been downgraded and are experiencing financial cutbacks in public funding
in several countries over the last decades, their audiences are mostly ageing citizens, and the arts
may in that way seem slightly archaic and as phenomena that are mostly reactivated and praised for
their civilizing effects by traditionalists. On the other hand, art in a broader sense, including popular
culture and creativity in innovation is more socially important than ever before. Consumption of
cultural productions is intensifying and consistently increasing in the media saturated era we live in.
Everyday life is to a growing extent aestheticized, which means that aesthetic deliberations permeate
daily activities. This can be seen in private consumption but also in how theatricality saturates politics
and economics: politics has become increasingly dependent on communication strategies and
economic life has become defined by marketing.
Sociologists suggest that art makes up a social world comparable to other social worlds, and this
entails that sociologists study the work of artists in the same manner as any other type of work.
Sociology and art connect in various ways. We can differentiate between doing sociology with art,
through art and about art. In doing sociology with art, sociologists use pieces of art as means for
understanding society. That is, analysing artworks as societal diagnoses that can teach us about social
issues. Sociology through art is another way of connecting sociology and art, namely by
experimenting with artistic methods to research society. This can take the form of artistic research
where the making of art becomes a method for exploring the social world, in parallel and contrast to
scientific methods, and it can take the form of knowledge dissemination in artistic formats. Sociology
about art is, treating art as an object of study rather than as a method for studying society. This
means that sociology of art is concerned with how art is made and used, studying the production,
distribution and consumption of art. By focusing on the creation, circulation and use of art, sociology
of art becomes about art in the sense that it outlines the social processes around art, rather than
focusing on characteristics of art itself.
Sociologists pay attention to the social activities involved in producing and using art.
Pierre Bourdieu arguments that cultural taste is based on social dispositions and in that way defined
by class background. He thinks that aesthetics is not neutral but based on cultural capital, which
means knowledge about the culture of the dominating class in society. The link between cultural
canons and class is the starting point of any sociology of art. By focusing on the sociological point that
it is possible to read class relations out of aesthetic taste judgements, the object of study has a
tendency to be interesting and relevant only as a marker of social stratification. There is not one way
of doing sociology of art.
Sociologists of art most often do not make aesthetic value judgements. Based on the premise that
the content of artworks lies outside the realm of sociology of art, in combination with the critical
analysis of aesthetic taste preferences from Bourdieu, sociologists of art are not preoccupied with
the quality of art works, but interested in how these objects are made and used. Max Weber thinks
that studying a value-laden topic should be done in a value-neutral. This aesthetically value-neutral
approach entails that sociologists of art often expand their field of research to include multiple types
of cultural objects of varying aesthetic quality, including failure cases and criticized aesthetic forms.
Something becomes an object of art when displayed as such by a legitimating institutional body.
Works are presented in a setting that distinguishes them from ordinary or vernacular objects. It is the
institutions around works that classify them as art. It is not the work itself, its aesthetic features, nor
the intentions of the creator that determine whether a work is a work of art, but the specific, socially
and historically developed institutional arrangements around art works. Institutional theory posits
Art holds a paradoxical position of being marginalized and omnipresent at the same time, depending
on how we define the category of art. On the one hand, the arts meaning Western, bourgeois,
canonized fine art, have been downgraded and are experiencing financial cutbacks in public funding
in several countries over the last decades, their audiences are mostly ageing citizens, and the arts
may in that way seem slightly archaic and as phenomena that are mostly reactivated and praised for
their civilizing effects by traditionalists. On the other hand, art in a broader sense, including popular
culture and creativity in innovation is more socially important than ever before. Consumption of
cultural productions is intensifying and consistently increasing in the media saturated era we live in.
Everyday life is to a growing extent aestheticized, which means that aesthetic deliberations permeate
daily activities. This can be seen in private consumption but also in how theatricality saturates politics
and economics: politics has become increasingly dependent on communication strategies and
economic life has become defined by marketing.
Sociologists suggest that art makes up a social world comparable to other social worlds, and this
entails that sociologists study the work of artists in the same manner as any other type of work.
Sociology and art connect in various ways. We can differentiate between doing sociology with art,
through art and about art. In doing sociology with art, sociologists use pieces of art as means for
understanding society. That is, analysing artworks as societal diagnoses that can teach us about social
issues. Sociology through art is another way of connecting sociology and art, namely by
experimenting with artistic methods to research society. This can take the form of artistic research
where the making of art becomes a method for exploring the social world, in parallel and contrast to
scientific methods, and it can take the form of knowledge dissemination in artistic formats. Sociology
about art is, treating art as an object of study rather than as a method for studying society. This
means that sociology of art is concerned with how art is made and used, studying the production,
distribution and consumption of art. By focusing on the creation, circulation and use of art, sociology
of art becomes about art in the sense that it outlines the social processes around art, rather than
focusing on characteristics of art itself.
Sociologists pay attention to the social activities involved in producing and using art.
Pierre Bourdieu arguments that cultural taste is based on social dispositions and in that way defined
by class background. He thinks that aesthetics is not neutral but based on cultural capital, which
means knowledge about the culture of the dominating class in society. The link between cultural
canons and class is the starting point of any sociology of art. By focusing on the sociological point that
it is possible to read class relations out of aesthetic taste judgements, the object of study has a
tendency to be interesting and relevant only as a marker of social stratification. There is not one way
of doing sociology of art.
Sociologists of art most often do not make aesthetic value judgements. Based on the premise that
the content of artworks lies outside the realm of sociology of art, in combination with the critical
analysis of aesthetic taste preferences from Bourdieu, sociologists of art are not preoccupied with
the quality of art works, but interested in how these objects are made and used. Max Weber thinks
that studying a value-laden topic should be done in a value-neutral. This aesthetically value-neutral
approach entails that sociologists of art often expand their field of research to include multiple types
of cultural objects of varying aesthetic quality, including failure cases and criticized aesthetic forms.
Something becomes an object of art when displayed as such by a legitimating institutional body.
Works are presented in a setting that distinguishes them from ordinary or vernacular objects. It is the
institutions around works that classify them as art. It is not the work itself, its aesthetic features, nor
the intentions of the creator that determine whether a work is a work of art, but the specific, socially
and historically developed institutional arrangements around art works. Institutional theory posits
