Classification in Art, Revisited

• In Event: 1548 - Classification and Legitimation in the Sociology of Culture

Abstract

Current scholarship in the sociology of the arts tends to dichotomize the fine arts (still commonly referred to as high culture) and the popular arts (once referred to as mass culture), but with a recognition of the blurring of these two categories. DiMaggio (1987) theorized this dichotomy in his work on classification in art. However, focus on this division is problematic because it ignores a crucial similarity between the fine and popular arts, in that both are created and developed in (commercial or nonprofit) production systems for distribution to audiences who receive them. In other words, they separate production from consumption. This paper argues that it is problematic to overlook the division between producers and consumers. Indeed, other forms of artistic creativity, where production and consumption co-occur or blur, have been largely ignored in sociology and in studies of classification in art. Folk art, amateur art, and peer-production in digital spaces have not been effectively theorized as a contributing to classification (or declassification). A more complete theory of classification in art needs to consider the relationship between production and consumption, in systems where these are separated and those where they are not.

Author

• Victoria D. Alexander, Goldsmiths