Freedom From and Through Markets: Autonomy in American Literary and Visual Arts Practice

• In Event: 148 - Regular Session. Economic Sociology. Creativity in Economic Life

Abstract

The extension of Bourdieusian theory to other times and places is common in both organizational and cultural sociology. While some scholars have found clear similarities, other question the degree to which Bourdieu’s theorizing was only descriptive of France at a particular time. Central to Bourdieu’s conception of artistic fields is a polarized bifurcation of orders within them. This paper takes the autonomous pole as its object of study. Contra Bourdieu, we find that the spheres of market and autonomous activity are not as diametrically opposed as expected. Relying on two case studies of the later half of the 20th Century and early 21st Century in the United States -the fine arts and literature -we document both of these processes. Our cases highlight how the autonomous pole of artistic fields operates in a different national context in four ways: 1) “hiding” state funding for the arts through institutions; 2) shifting arts funding away from government intervention and the funding of established artists and onto would-be and emergent artists through formalized artistic training; 3) New pathways to financial security for artists through the rise of formal artistic training and cultural changes around the value and meaning of teaching; and 4) the rise of a mega-market for the primary sale of objects of a very few practitioners. The particularities of the American case bring renewed questions about the autonomous pole of artistic fields and to questions of autonomy and identity in professional and nonstandard work in general.

Authors

• Alison Gerber, Yale University

• Clayton Childress, University of Toronto