FROM PRINTS TO POSTERS: THE PRODUCTION OF ARTISTIC VALUE IN A POPULAR ART WORLD

The activity of a gallery in an art world is centered not only on the distribution of works, but also on the development of a clientele. This involves convincing potential customers that works have both artistic and economic value. The traditional path of valuation of works is through the gatekeepers of the high art world. There are, however, art worlds whose works have not passed through these high art gatekeepers, but which are nevertheless successful in maintaining a clientele. This article examines the process by which this popular art world establishes a positive value for its art when it has no access to the legitimating institutions of the high art world. Data were gathered primarily through interviews with gallery directors, employees, and artists, both from the popular and high-art worlds. The sample includes 18 popular galleries and 10 high art galleries in the Chicago area. “Popular galleries” are defined as those galleries located in the shopping districts of cities or in suburban shopping malls. Many are part of larger chains, and all carry prints by well-known artists, works of lesser known artists, and some posters.     

Displayed Art and Performed Music: Selective Innovation and the Structure of Artistic Media*

Aesthetic innovation in symphony orchestras and art museums is strongly influenced by the fundamental structure of the art forms with which each institution is associated. Music depends on time, visual art on space; while music is ephemeral, painting and sculpture consist of concrete objects. These structural differences have implications for the organizations: costs, expectations of growth and patronage sources. Most important, just as museums are constrained to feature innovative works, performed music institutions are constrained to avoid them. Examining orchestras and art museums reveals the connections among specific art forms, organizational structures and aesthetic outcomes.     

都市“非遗”创新：堆金织玉话广彩——陶瓷书画家连泽强先生访谈录

非物质文化遗产是一个民族的＂DNA＂,对都市＂非遗＂的淡忘,会造成我国城市传统文化的缺失。保护＂非遗＂,更要在传承中创新,让＂非遗＂活起来,其生命之树才会常青。广彩是国家级的＂非遗＂,是广州的城市文化名片之一,有过辉煌,亦曾走入衰落。在广州推进新型城市化发展的要求下,广彩如何传承创新,焕发生命力,助推文化强市和世界文化名城建设？     

Cultural administrators as creative workers: the case of public and non-governmental cultural institutions in St. Petersburg

ABSTRACT

Despite the increasing number of studies dedicated to creative professionals, there are still many topics that remain understudied. One such topic is the interconnection of professional labour and cultural institutions, which frame labour conditions. Furthermore, while much research has been devoted to the UK, other regions or global concerns have gained little attention. This article concerns creative professionals in post-Soviet Russia. It offers an overview of the field of cultural institutions in St. Petersburg in relation to the cultural administration and the professionals working for them. In particular, this study focuses on the public sector in Russian cultural production and the new non-state institutions founded by young entrepreneurs and activists, which have to struggle constantly for recognition and support from the city’s administration. Based on the fieldwork conducted in St. Petersburg between 2012 and 2015, the empirical study includes 26 in-depth interviews with cultural managers, employees of art centres, lofts, creative spaces, museums, and theatres. The research items highlighted here are concerned with the specificity of the newly established Russian institutional environment, framing creative labour in public and non-governmental cultural institutions. It discusses whether the post-socialist system presents a ‘luckier’ medium for a ‘good’ creative job than that of advanced capitalism.     

Aesthetics of disaster as decolonial aesthetics: making sense of the effects of Hurricane María through Puerto Rican contemporary art

ABSTRACT

On 20 September 2017, Hurricane María made landfall on Puerto Rico causing unprecedented disaster. From that day onwards, the Puerto Rican multi-layered colonial, social and political context was further complicated by the traumatic acceleration of a human disaster via this natural disaster. This crystalized the urgency of using art as vehicle for (social) catharsis, a practice that continues to be used by individual artists, collectives, community organizations, art projects, and other art institutions on the island and abroad, through mural art, community paintings, art exhibitions, literature, music, and many other aesthetic expressions. This article examines, from a decolonial and critical cultural studies perspective, post-Hurricane María artistic expressions in contemporary art as decolonial aesthetics through the cathartic use of the frame of an aesthetics of disaster. It is argued that, an aesthetics of disaster aims to re-assert an artistic form that is able to accelerate the discursive nullification of a deeply rooted colonial, social and cultural problem by way of art as catharsis inspired by the way that Hurricane María unveiled these problems. The piece briefly contextualizes Puerto Rico, and it examines the idea of Puerto Rican contemporary art as catharsis. Then, it describes how Puerto Rican contemporary art exhibitions and associated aesthetic production are processing urgent post-hurricane issues through three illustrative pieces in exhibitions in PR and abroad in the United States (US). Lastly, decolonial aesthetics is reexamined and re-understood, informed by Édouard Glissant's view expressed in Poetics of Relation which aids to the conclusion that Puerto Rican contemporary art using the frame of an aesthetics of disaster functions as a powerful form of decolonial aesthetics.     

The proliferation of alternative film exhibition spaces in Istanbul: cultural segregation and urban cinephilia

In the last decade, Istanbul witnessed the rapid proliferation of alternative film exhibition spaces such as museums, cafes, art and cultural centres in specific neighbourhoods. This increase is a result of mostly three forces: the monopoly of dominant distribution companies, authoritarian pressure of the government and urban transformation in Istanbul. These places provide space for censored films and are essentially important for independent and experimental films as well as documentaries and short films which have very limited or no theatrical release. On the other hand, their concentration in specific districts and that they target the audience with certain cultural capital is aggregate hierarchical clusters. Through analysing these alternative exhibition spaces in Istanbul, this study investigates the changing relationship between film exhibition, audience and the city. It discovers how urban transformation, authoritarian cultural policies and economic capital changed cinema-going and urban cinephilia in Istanbul. It suggests that while these alternative film exhibiton venues provide space for independent filmmakers, festivals and censored films, they also articulate to social hierarchy and cultural segregation.     

WHAT ABOUT THE OLD CULTURAL INTERMEDIARIES? AN HISTORICAL REVIEW OF ADVERTISING PRODUCERS

Critical work on advertising is underscored by a teleological conception of its object. This often emerges in the form of an emphasis on advertising as an evolving, hybrid institutions that increasingly mixes the ‘economic’ with the ‘cultural’. It is in this vein that advertising practitioners have been characterized as ‘new cultural intermediaries’ deploying distinctive aesthetic sensibilities. Similar patterns of knowledge and behaviour, however, can be traced amongst early producers of advertising suggesting a generation of ‘old’ cultural intermediaries. This unexpected phenomenon, it is argued, arises for two reasons. The first is that much critical work addressing the nature of contemporary advertising lacks historical context. The second is that culture and economy are normatively conceptualized as separate spheres. This separation underplays the multiple interconnections between the cultural and the economic in instances of material practice. Accordingly it is proposed that advertising be reformulated as a constituent practice that has historically relied upon the juxtaposition of ‘cultural’ and ‘economic’ knowledges.     

Social services and deviation from the Bismarckian model in Italy: the absence of a nationwide trend of change

This article analyses the processes of deviation from the Bismarckian welfare model in Italy, with a focus on social assistance. The sector was reformed in 2000, with new service provision functions being assigned to local institutions and the affirmation of a universalistic principle of access. However, an analysis of social expenditure data and a review of the process of implementation of the reform demonstrate that many local governments have been unable to enact the innovation and that a homogeneous nationwide trend of deviation from the Bismarckian tradition is absent. This absence is explained by looking both at the local institutional arrangements that have historically characterized the different Italian territories and at the present relationships among national, regional, and local governments.     

A question of perception: Bourdieu, art and the postmodern

Bourdieu and Darbel's classic study of European art museum audiences, The Love of Art (1991), remains one of the most influential academic studies of the social indices of art perception. Its findings were central to Bourdieu's on-going study of culture-mediated power relations, as found in the book Distinction (Bourdieu 1984), as well as social surveys of the behaviour of museum audiences across the world. Much in Bourdieu's account of art perception, however, has begun to appear dated and in need of supplementation. This paper will be a critical but sympathetic re-reading of Bourdieu's sociology of art perception in the light of recent criticisms of his approach. Whilst fine art and its institutions continue to function as sources of social identification and differentiation, this paper argues that the relationship between perception and stratification is somewhat looser than connoted in Bourdieu's work. Beyond the shift to a less rigid taxonomy of social formations, the immense expansion of the visual arts complex has opened up possibilities for the dissemination of art knowledge beyond the cultivated bourgeois. The erosion of boundaries between the aesthetic and the economic, between art and popular culture, are the result of processes of commodification that have placed museums alongside shopping malls within the realms of consumption and entertainment. New audiences have emerged from this mix with less dichotomized - that is, either cultivated or popular - ways of seeing culture that suggest a revision of Bourdieu's overly integrated account of class and cognition. An alternative, 'postmodern', approach to art perception is entertained, where an aesthetics of distinction is replaced by a culture of distraction, but this abstracts culture from any structural grounding. Capturing the shift to an accelerated cultural present, instead, requires a warping of Bourdieu's categories to account for broader patterns of culture and economy and the accentuation of modern visual culture.     

Cultural diplomacy and internationalism in regional art institutions

This study posits that current cultural diplomacy practice in UK museums and galleries could be significantly improved. Indeed, cultural diplomacy is commonly viewed as nationalist propaganda. An attempt to theoretically debunk this proposition indicates that greater understanding between peoples can be engendered by unifying the ideologies of internationalism and liberalism in the cultural sector. Liberalism is viewed as the present ideology operating in Museums and Galleries whilst internationalism is considered as a nascent force. Working in symbiosis, liberalism allows for a multiplicity of discourse whilst internationalism allows for a critical reappraisal of the status quo and nation-state hegemony. Indeed, a multiplicity of dialogic discourse is essential for cultural institutions to maintain a non-hegemonic stance. This is, of course, particularly apparent in contemporary art work which can often be subversive of national governments and the very idea of a nation-state. Further to this, a form of localised cultural diplomacy can reach the public at large and question the cultural capital of world centres. Empirically speaking, the exhibition format is used as a means to render cultural diplomacy palatable for public consumption. Hence, the UK case study Art from Elsewhere will be introduced which has rendered the international a normative presence in local art galleries. This 2014–2016 exhibition comprised a tour of recent contemporary art acquisitions in regional permanent collections which were funded by a £5 million pound grant from the UK charitable organisation, Art Fund. Instead of monophonic exhibitions emanating from one nation, Art from Elsewhere engenders a multilateral dialogue catalysed by the polyphonic nature of artists from several different nations whose works are juxtaposed both in conflict, symmetry and contrast to one another.     

MIXING ART AND LIFE: The Conundrum of the Avant-Garde's Autonomous Status in the Performance Art World of Los Angeles

Performance art, the quintessential avant-garde art form, flourished and gained national renown in Los Angeles during the last three decades of the twentieth century. In 1989, however, pivotal changes occurred within the performance art world and in the national attitude toward art, as seen in upheavals in the National Endowment for the Arts, that drastically altered not only the form and content of performance art but also its means of production and its status as an autonomous avantgarde art world. An historical analysis of the transformation of this performance art world from the mid-1970s to its manifestation in the 1990s is presented by analyzing ethnographic and archival data and by noting the circumstances affecting the autonomy of this art world and its relationship to external social and cultural spheres.
Minerva's owl only begins its flight as dusk emerges.G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Law     

‘Ink Art’ as strategy for Hong Kong institutions

Abstract

In both their wider cultural dimensions and the institutional practices they stem from, the practices of ink art in Hong Kong manifest themselves in a variety of discourses ranging from the ‘traditionalism’ of the conservative nativists to the ‘contemporaneity’ of artists and institutions often identified as being closer to ‘Western’ culture. Even though the most influential discourse about ink art in Hong Kong has clearly been produced by official institutions, like the future museum of visual culture called M+ and the already existing Museum of Art, it has also been profoundly influenced by private associations whose influence has been far reaching. The most visible of these private associations in Hong Kong is the Ink Society, whose founding members and their affiliates and friends have played a central role in the early debate about the nature of ink art in the history of local arts. Through an analysis of a failed attempt by the Ink Society to bid for the right to manage a historical site, this paper attempts to unravel some of the ideas that support the notion of ink art in Hong Kong.     

SCHOOLS OF ACTIVITY AND INNOVATION

Explanations of artistic innovation have generally focused on political or psychological factors influencing individual socialization. This article suggests an alternative approach focusing on the organizational processes in an art world, specifically the production of concert music. Concerts are produced through the collective activity of musical specialists. Compatible collaborators identify each other by constructing "schools of activity" that group conventional concert practices and practitioners. Different schools, however, do not simply represent alternative conventions, rather they represent degrees of convention that correspond to varying aesthetic interests in innovation and virtuosity. The first part of this article examines the organization of artistic activity and the formation of schools. The second part presents data from the concert world illustrating the organization of alternative types of artistic practice.     

THE END OF THE ART CONNOISSEUR? EXPERTS AND KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION IN THE VISUAL ARTS IN THE DIGITAL AGE

In this digital age, declarations surface of the death of the expert and the democratization of information. Crowd wisdom is seen as the new guide in constructing and evaluating knowledge. In the context of the art world, this tension between the amateurs and the experts becomes particularly pronounced as popular meets high culture. Questions arise such as: what is the role of the expert in the evaluation of art in contemporary times? Do social media dismantle age-old hierarchies and established priesthoods in the art world? And can we assume that mass participation in valuation results in better judgments? This article addresses such popular notions of participation and expertise concerning social media in the art world through a historical lens by re-examining and positioning art experts from past to present. Particularly, characteristics of intermediaries in the art market are examined closely regarding their strategies in knowledge production and the establishment of expertise. This historical situatedness enables us to move beyond the hype of new media expectations, generating more appropriate avenues of investigation to better grasp possible changes amongst actors within the contemporary art world. This examination is not just theoretically relevant but practically so, given current pressures on art institutions to embrace and reach out to new audiences online.     

Technology supported learning Tensions between innovation,and control and organisational and professional cultures

Abstract

The use of technology to support learning in institutions of Further and Higher Education has become almost ubiquitous. Institutions normally start with strategies aimed at introducing these innovations, but there is much about the organisational and cultural nature of educational institutions that acts as a barrier to innovation. Staffordshire University started this process in 1997, and by 2002 reached a point where innovation had slowed and the embedding of what had been achieved was at best partial. An embedding process based around the review and implementation of policy ensued which, by 2005, had proved highly successful in terms of embedding, but due to cultural and organisational factors, this had been at the expense of sustaining innovation and had created tensions within the organisation. This was compounded by changes in technology and the advent of new web-based services, which stimulated innovative practitioners. New initiatives to address the tensions between the need of the organisation to control its processes and the needs of practitioners to experiment and innovate have begun. These have highlighted the requirement for tools to enable strategy and policy to be considered against the processes making up the learning experience in terms of ownership and control.     

浅析电影《泰坦尼克号》中的文化之美

有人认为一部优秀的影片需要有强大的技术优势,有人认为一部优秀的影片要有巨大的资金投入,也有人认为一部优秀的影片要具有强烈的商业色彩,还有人认为一部优秀的影片是能够充分考虑并迎合观众的审美心理的作品。我认为一部优秀的影视作品与其所蕴涵的文化精神有很大的关系。家喻户晓的美国电影《泰坦尼克号》一举夺得了奥斯卡12项大奖,产生了风靡全球的艺术影响。我认为它能够成为经典,最核心的地方还是剧中无处不在的文化精神。     

Ulak (The Messenger): a mystic fable of Islamic messianism

Although modernity considers religion as a fable, religion has always been part of modern politics. The ‘return of religion’ in global politics, which marks the contemporary political and cultural imagination, accentuates this paradox. Religion has now become indispensible for the idea of truth. In this article, I approach this problematique by discussing the relationship between religion and art in terms of their relation to the idea of truth. In this respect, I focus on a Turkish film, Ulak (The Messenger), and analyze the film’s thought about religion and the link it establishes between the artistic/narrative fable and the idea of truth. The film’s choice of Gnosticism as the language of the dispossessed indicates a political position in relation to both the ‘return of religion’ and the popularity of the cultural turn in politics. On this basis, the article examines the film’s take on the concept of the event as a miracle (in religious messianism), contrasting it with the philosophy of revolution. Thus, it navigates the ambivalent border between art and non-art, between the mystic fable and politics. With modernity, it is said that, art has replaced religion and borrowed its sacredness. A reverse process in place today: a resacralization of art and politics. Art and religion share a common element: illusion. However, art profanes illusion, while religion sacralizes it. On this basis, the article concludes that Ulak is a cinematic form of antiphilosophy. It is a spectacular movie as a critique of institutional religion, yet it is captivated by the understanding of truth as a miracle, by the truth of the fable. Following Badiou, who views art as a truth procedure, one could say that Ulak’s potential to clarify the value of the truth event remains questionable.     

上海国家对外文化贸易基地加速发展的思路和举措

当前,上海文化贸易发展还面临诸多瓶颈制约,与发达国家相比差距明显,迫切需要寻找突破口,在政策上先行先试,挖掘创新动力,整合各方力量。上海国家对外文化贸易基地是国家对外文化贸易创新发展的重要载体,突破不合理的限制是其承担的重要功能。要最大限度地发挥基地的作用,就要尽可能集中各类与对外文化贸易相关的资源,推动各类与对外文化贸易相关的活动,从而激发各类创新,在各个层面为国家对外文化贸易探索新路。