Sociology of the Arts. Victoria D. Alexander

studies can play in getting students to think about the more abstract theoretical issues. Case studies are almost indispensable in the teaching of work, occupations, and organizational behavior, but are used less often in other subfields in sociology. Convinced of their utility in organizations classes, I subsequently tried them in arts classes, where they worked quite well. Accordingly, I have written a case study for each substantive chapter in the book. They are intended to spark classroom discussion, and also to exemplify some of the most interesting empirical work within the sociology of the arts.

Acknowledgments (First Edition)

Although the idea of writing this book came to me fairly recently [writing in 2002], the resulting work is, fundamentally, the product of eighteen years of studying and teaching. As a consequence, thanks are due to many more people than I can adequately acknowledge. I owe a great intellectual debt to Ann Swidler. Her ideas have influenced my work since I met her in 1984. I took her seminar on the Sociology of Culture that academic year, a course which provided a strong foundation for my subsequent thinking. Ann has been enormously helpful over the years and it has been my privilege to know her. Also in 1984–85, I took a seminar on Sociology of Literature with Wendy Griswold, whose idea of the cultural diamond frames the presentation of scholarship in this book. My students over the years at Stanford, Harvard, and Surrey, where I have taught courses on the sociology of art and culture, have asked innumerable questions and raised many interesting points. Through them, I have clarified my thinking. I deeply appreciate their input, and the book is better for it.

      I met Howard Becker as a student in a photography seminar in Rochester, New York in the late 1970s. I learned a lot, but I had no idea that he was at that very moment researching a book which would so deeply influence my future career. People I have seen regularly at conferences over the years, particularly Vera Zolberg, have shared their ideas. They are too numerous to name individually, but I look forward to seeing them next time. While writing Sociology of the Arts, I have also been working with Marilyn Rueschemeyer on a co‐authored book, Art and the State in Comparative Perspective, and the cross‐fertilization between the projects has borne fruit. I would also like to thank the Stanford Women’s Culture Project, the FTC Group at Harvard University, Paul DiMaggio, John Meyer, and Dick Scott for invaluable help along the way.

      A chance conversation with Bob Witkin got the ball rolling on this project, and two brief conversations with Pete Peterson, on the name of our field and on the cultural diamond, were more influential than he might realize. Anne Bowler, Tia DeNora, and Ann Swidler gave useful feedback at an early stage of the project, Geoff Cooper at the end. I would like to thank Anne Bowler for comments on Chapter 14, and Sarah Corse for comments on the entire manuscript. Anonymous reviewers provided feedback on the prospectus and the manuscript, for which I am grateful. I regret that my deadline followed closely my receipt of the full reviews, as I was unable to follow through on several useful leads provided by the reviews. I am grateful to Hilary Underwood for her generous and timely advice on obtaining copyright permission for artworks, and to Bernice Pescosolido and colleagues who kindly helped in what proved to be a fruitless quest to reproduce an image from their ASR article. Paul Taylor from the Photographic Collection of the Warburg Institute traced information on two problematic images that are now reproduced herein. The professionals at Blackwell Publishing have been wonderful to work with, and I would like to thank Angela Cohen, Anthony Grahame, Susan Rabinowitz, and especially, Ken Provencher.

      I would like to thank the University of Surrey, and especially my colleagues in the Sociology Department, for providing me a sabbatical leave in Autumn 2000, which allowed this book to get off the ground. Jim Benson read every word of the manuscript, and I cannot properly thank him.

      I dedicate this book to my daughter, Katherine Benson. Without her, the book would have been finished sooner, but my life would not have been as rich.

      Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Julie Le Brun Looking in a Mirror (1787), detail. Metropolitan Museum of Art. (Photo: Metropolitan Museum, Open Access Collection.)

1 Introduction: What is Art?

      This book is about the sociology of the arts. That is evident from its title. Perhaps not clear is what I mean by art and what I mean by a sociology of it. Art is a value‐laden word, conjuring up images of the best that has been penned into words or brushed onto canvas. This book uses the term in a more mundane, and a broader, sense. Art includes the tangible, visible and/or audible products of creative endeavor; it includes not only the traditional fine arts but also the popular and folk arts.

      Sociology is, among other things, the study of society, the study of human systems, the study of how people create meaning, and the study of social inequality. These aspects of sociology are central to this book. We will examine how groups of people work together to create what we call art. We will look at why some things are called “art” and some people “artists”—and why other things and people are not. We will look at the meaning of artistic objects and why interpretations of art vary. We will look at how people use artistic products, for aesthetic pleasure, certainly, but also for other reasons. And we will study the intersection of race, gender, sexuality, and class with art.

Defining Art

Definitions often seem to pin down, in academic phraseology, what seems intuitively obvious. I will not give a formal definition of art suitable for quoting in essays or exams.¹ Instead, I will paint, with a broad brush, a picture of the cultural forms that I intend to cover in this book. Indeed, it is not actually possible to define art in abstract terms, because “what is art”—even broadly stated—is socially defined, and therefore subject to many inconsistencies. Why is ballet art but World Federation Wrestling not art? They both are scripted before‐hand and performed to a sound track (music or the roar of the crowd and the announcer’s voice‐over); the performers wear attractive costumes and leap athletically about the stage. We might say that art is not sport (but this begs the question, in this case, as to why the World Federation style of wrestling is considered sport). Family photos are not considered art, even the ones which are carefully composed and mounted in beautiful scrapbooks. These photos and albums might be an expressive form, but they are too private to be called art. Nevertheless, most of us would think of the photographer Ansel Adams’s private albums as art, and some photographers have created family photos, specifically meant to be considered art, that have been exhibited in museums.² If we already think of the creator as an artist, or if we see a work in a museum, we tend to call it art. This points to the importance of the context.

      The sociologist Howard Becker (2008 [1982]) believes that the context is the most important aspect to the definition of art. He says,

      Like other complex concepts, [the concept of art] disguises a generalization about the nature of reality. When we try to define it, we find many anomalous cases, cases which meet some, but not all, of the criteria implied or expressed by the concept. When we say “art,” we usually mean something like this: a work which has aesthetic value, however that is defined; a work justified by a coherent and defensible aesthetic; a work displayed in the appropriate places (hung in museums, played at concerts). In many instances, however, works have some, but not all, of these attributes. (p. 138)

      Becker believes that a work is art if people say it is. That is, the contents of the category of art are defined socially. Further, art is defined by groups of people organized into art worlds, which we will discuss in detail later. An example: A colleague of mine was interviewing art students at the San Francisco Art Institute. In a courtyard outside the classroom, a young man dressed in black clothes was standing in the fountain and moving his body in interesting ways. Inside, my colleague