Art in the Shadows: Producer as Gatekeeper

• In Event: 433 - Section on Sociology of Culture Paper Session. Art, Money, and Meaning

Abstract

Sociologists tend analyze events, organizations, objects, and ideas which are highly visible in society and are deemed to have a significant social impact on the public. I call this the “winner bias.” Studies of creative industries have typically taken a consumer-oriented perspective, deeming the processes by which objects reach consumers and the consumers’ experiences of these objects as sociologically important. In this perspective, objects which are not made public beyond their producers, or are made public only to a limited circle, fall out of analysis, as they are largely invisible to consumers. In contrast, I propose a producer-oriented approach which analyzes how those objects that become less public impact individuals who are involved in their production and circulation, in turn, shaping those entities that do become highly public. While previous gatekeeping theories have not extensively theorized producers as gatekeepers, this producer-oriented perspective reveals producers as primary gatekeepers, selecting only some of their creations as candidates for becoming public objects. Using the empirical case of the contemporary art market, I analyze which kinds of artworks systematically become “shadow objects” – work that is not made public beyond the artist – through artists’ selection and how these works impact artistic production.

Author

• Hannah Linda Wohl, Northwestern University