THE SOCIOLOGY OF VISUAL ARTS

Abstract

Sociology of arts provides an introduction to the fundamental debates in the sociology of art, using extracts from the core foundational and most influential contemporary writers in the field. It is set on a disciplinary border that highlights sociological discourses about specific issues in society. The sources and information were from the field of anthropology, art history and art criticism. Firstly, this course discusses the complex cultural processes linking the visual arts and society in general. In such an endeavour the course adopts the assumption that artistic expressions are the result of those ongoing processes of ‘social construction’ that take place between artists, their audiences (art critics, curators, the media etc.), their economic and cultural environments as well as their historical and social contexts. It is important to review issues of artistic ‘production’. The role of the artist, the critic/dealer and of the curator was examined to understand their place in contemporary societies, while – on the other hand – attention was granted to different kinds of audiences and the use they make of art objects. Sociological consideration of the arts has a long history. It extends back to the works of such classical writers as Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Georg Simmel and weaves its way to contemporary work by such scholars as Paul DiMaggio.