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 valueāladen 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 āartā and some people āartistsāāand 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 āwhat is artāāeven broadly statedāis socially defined, and therefore subject to many inconsistencies. Why is ballet art but World Federation Wrestling not art? They both are scripted beforeāhand and performed to a sound track (music or the roar of the crowd and the announcerās voiceāover); 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 Adamsās 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,
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 found the students discussing whether āBobā was making art, or whether he was just acting like an idiot again. The studentsā debate on whether or not Bobās movements were art highlights the issue of context. If the fountain had been in a theater, his dance would probably be thought of as art (whether it was good art is another question). If he danced in a public fountain, passersby might think he was mentally ill. Since the context was an art school, the answer was not clear.
Becker also suggests that we think of the definitional problems in relationship to art as an opportunity for research rather than as a problem: āArt worlds typically devote considerable attention to trying to decide what is and isnāt artā¦; by observing how an art world makes those distinctions rather than trying to make them ourselves we can understand much of what goes on in that worldā (p. 36).
Beckerās comments are quite correct and we shall examine them in greater detail later. Assuming that we cannot define art formally and abstractly, there are, nevertheless, some elements that characterize most forms of art:
- There is an artistic product. It may be tangible, visible, or audible. The product can be a physical object, like a book or record. Or it can be a performance, like a play or a concert.
- It communicates publicly. To be art, the cultural product must not only exist, it must be seen, heard, touched, or experienced by an audience, either in public or private settings. All art is communication. Of course, not all communication is art.
- It is experienced for enjoyment. āEnjoymentā can take many forms. Art might be consumed for aesthetic pleasure, for sociability and fun, for mental stimulation, or for escape. Sometimes, however, people are exposed to art because āitās good for them,ā as in a school trip to a museum.
- Art is an expressive form. When art relates to real life, it presents a fiction or an interpretation. Sometimes art claims to tell the ātruth,ā but if it takes this idea too literally, it moves into the area of documentary, nonāfiction, or news.
- Art is defined by its context, both physical and social. What is art in a museum or theater may be just odd objects or strange behavior in other settings. When different social groups view the same expressive product, they may disagree on whether or not it is art.
It is as important to understand what this book will not cover, as well as what it will cover. I exclude from analysis (1) popular culture in the broad sense, for instance, youth culture or commodity culture, and (2) the media in their informational, rather than entertaining, formats, for instance news, documentaries and the like, whether online or broadcast. Griswold (2013) distinguishes between implicit culture and explicit culture. Implicit culture is an abstract feature of social life: how we live and think. Explicit culture is a tangible construction, a performance or product that is producedāit is what I am calling āart.ā The book analyses culture in the explicit sense, but does not attempt to address implicit culture systematically.
In place of a formal definition, a list of what is āartā and ānot artā will help define the scope of the book (see Table 1.1). This book will cover: (1) The fine (or high) arts. For example: the visual arts (painting, sculpture, drawing, etching, and other works that you might find in an art museum), opera, live symphony and chamber music, recorded classical music, drama, theater, dance (ballet and modern), other performance art (experimental theater, happenings, etc.), literature and serious fiction, and digital art (art visible only in virtual environments), and art recently āpromotedā to high art (e.g. jazz music, some cinema). (2) The popular (or low, or mass) arts. For instance: Hollywood movies, independent film (sometimes considered as fine art), television drama (series, serials, madeāforātelevision movies), television sitcoms, bestāselling and pulp fiction, popular music (rock, pop, rap, etc.) including recorded music, rock concerts, and performances in pubs and clubs, and print, television, and online advertising. The fine and popular arts are the bookās main subjects, but we will also discuss (3) the folk arts, that is, artistic activities created in community settings. These include: some types of amateur music, garage rock music (e.g. as performed by teenagers), quilting (especially in quilt circles), and graffiti of the artistic (rather than the public toilet) kind, as well as a wide variety of DIY (do it yourself) creation distributed via the Internet, such as music or fanfiction. As mentioned, some types of art do not neatly fall into one of the categories, for instance, jazz can be either popular or high art, and, especially in its early forms, folk art (Lop...
