The Sociology of Arts and Markets: New Developments and Persistent Patterns [1st ed.] 9783030390129, 9783030390136

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xvi
Introduction (Andrea Glauser, Patricia Holder, Thomas Mazzurana, Olivier Moeschler, Valérie Rolle, Franz Schultheis)....Pages 1-15
Front Matter ....Pages 17-17
Patrick Modiano, Between the Fields of Limited Production and Large-Scale Production (Clara Lévy)....Pages 19-45
A Star Down-to-Earth: On Social Critique in Popular Culture (Désirée Waibel, Robert Schäfer)....Pages 47-71
Front Matter ....Pages 73-73
Art Workers, Inequality, and the Labour Market: Values, Norms, and Alienation Across Three Generations of Artists (Orian Brook, Dave O’Brien, Mark Taylor)....Pages 75-96
Visual Artists’ Professional Situations and Trajectories Between Institutions and the Market (Pierre Bataille, Johannes M. Hedinger, Olivier Moeschler)....Pages 97-128
The Art Market: Art’s Incomplete Mirror—Artistic Action’s Guiding Principles and Their Consequences for the Art Market (Linda Dürkop-Henseling)....Pages 129-156
Front Matter ....Pages 157-157
When Market Promotes Individuality: Arts in Early Modern Japan from the Macrosociological Perspective (Takemitsu Morikawa)....Pages 159-181
The Art Market Facing New Connoisseurship: The Reception of Pieter Brueghel the Younger at Auction (Anne-Sophie Radermecker)....Pages 183-212
Collective-Artists: Actors on the Margins of the Global Field of Contemporary Art (Séverine Marguin)....Pages 213-236
Front Matter ....Pages 237-237
Hierarchies and Divisions in the Subfield of Gallery Owners: A Research on Art Galleries in Milan (Anna Uboldi)....Pages 239-262
Mapping the Professional Self-Concepts of Gallery Owners: A Typology (Michael Gautier)....Pages 263-285
The Diffusion of Galleries in China (1991–2016) (Linzhi Zhang)....Pages 287-316
Front Matter ....Pages 317-317
Magic Index on the Wall: Who Is the Most Valuable Artist of Them All? (Nathalie Moureau)....Pages 319-338
Can Contemporary Art Galleries Be Ranked? A Sociological Attempt from the Paris Case (Alain Quemin)....Pages 339-362
Front Matter ....Pages 363-363
The Art Fair Boom and Its Contradictions (Erwin Single)....Pages 365-385
Art Meets Capitalism: In Praise of Promising Potentialities? (Denis Hänzi)....Pages 387-410
The Art, the Market, and Sociology: Concluding Remarks (Franz Schultheis)....Pages 411-419
Back Matter ....Pages 421-431

Citation preview

SOCIOLOGY OF THE ARTS

The Sociology of Arts and Markets New Developments and Persistent Patterns Edited by Andrea Glauser · Patricia Holder Thomas Mazzurana · Olivier Moeschler Valérie Rolle · Franz Schultheis

Sociology of the Arts

Series Editors Katherine Appleford Kingston University London, UK Anna Goulding University of Newcastle Newcastle, UK Dave O’Brien University of Edinburgh Edinburgh, UK Mark Taylor University of Sheffield Sheffield, UK

This series brings together academic work which considers the production and consumption of the arts, the social value of the arts, and analyses and critiques the impact and role of cultural policy and arts management. By exploring the ways in which the arts are produced and consumed, the series offers further understandings of social inequalities, power relationships and opportunities for social resistance and agency. It highlights the important relationship between individual, social and political attitudes, and offers significant insights into the ways in which the arts are developing and changing. Moreover, in a globalised society, the nature of arts production, consumption and policy making is increasingly cosmopolitan, and arts are an important means for building social networks, challenging political regimes, and reaffirming and subverting social values across the globe. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15469

Andrea Glauser Patricia Holder Thomas Mazzurana Olivier Moeschler  •  Valérie Rolle Franz Schultheis Editors

The Sociology of Arts and Markets New Developments and Persistent Patterns

Editors Andrea Glauser University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, Austria

Patricia Holder University of St. Gallen St. Gallen, Switzerland

Thomas Mazzurana University of St. Gallen St. Gallen, Switzerland

Olivier Moeschler University of Lausanne Lausanne, Switzerland

Valérie Rolle University of Nantes Nantes, France

Franz Schultheis Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, Germany

ISSN 2569-1414     ISSN 2569-1406 (electronic) Sociology of the Arts ISBN 978-3-030-39012-9    ISBN 978-3-030-39013-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39013-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image © Anna Goulding This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Andrea Glauser, Patricia Holder, Thomas Mazzurana, Olivier Moeschler, Valérie Rolle, and Franz Schultheis Part I Creators in the Market: Artists Between Aesthetics, Critique, and Trade  17 2 Patrick Modiano, Between the Fields of Limited Production and Large-Scale Production 19 Clara Lévy 3 A Star Down-to-Earth: On Social Critique in Popular Culture 47 Désirée Waibel and Robert Schäfer

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Part II Artistic Career Paths: Trajectories and Inequalities in the Market  73 4 Art Workers, Inequality, and the Labour Market: Values, Norms, and Alienation Across Three Generations of Artists 75 Orian Brook, Dave O’Brien, and Mark Taylor 5 Visual Artists’ Professional Situations and Trajectories Between Institutions and the Market 97 Pierre Bataille, Johannes M. Hedinger, and Olivier Moeschler 6 The Art Market: Art’s Incomplete Mirror—Artistic Action’s Guiding Principles and Their Consequences for the Art Market129 Linda Dürkop-Henseling Part III The Economy of Idiosyncrasy: Art Dealers and the Commodification of Individuality 157 7 When Market Promotes Individuality: Arts in Early Modern Japan from the Macrosociological Perspective159 Takemitsu Morikawa 8 The Art Market Facing New Connoisseurship: The Reception of Pieter Brueghel the Younger at Auction183 Anne-Sophie Radermecker 9 Collective-Artists: Actors on the Margins of the Global Field of Contemporary Art213 Séverine Marguin

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Part IV Marketable Art: Galleries and Gallery Owners as Central Intermediaries 237 10 Hierarchies and Divisions in the Subfield of Gallery Owners: A Research on Art Galleries in Milan239 Anna Uboldi 11 Mapping the Professional Self-Concepts of Gallery Owners: A Typology263 Michael Gautier 12 The Diffusion of Galleries in China (1991–2016)287 Linzhi Zhang Part V Market Assessments: The Increasing Role of Art Rankings 317 13 Magic Index on the Wall: Who Is the Most Valuable Artist of Them All?319 Nathalie Moureau 14 Can Contemporary Art Galleries Be Ranked? A Sociological Attempt from the Paris Case339 Alain Quemin Part VI Features of the Art Market in Advanced Capitalism: From Established to New Patterns? 363 15 The Art Fair Boom and Its Contradictions365 Erwin Single

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16 Art Meets Capitalism: In Praise of Promising Potentialities?387 Denis Hänzi 17 The Art, the Market, and Sociology: Concluding Remarks411 Franz Schultheis Index421

Notes on Contributors

Pierre  Bataille is a lecturer at the Université Grenoble Alpes. His research interests include the sociology of education, sociology of elites, sociology of work, cultural sociology, gender perspective, and longitudinal approaches in mixed methods research design. His main works have been published in European Educational Research Journal, European Sociological Review, Formation-Emploi, Sociétés Contemporaines, and Sociologie. Orian  Brook is AHRC Creative and Digital Economy Innovation Leadership Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, researching social and spatial inequalities in the creative economy, including precarity in creative employment, and spatial differences in the social stratification of cultural participation. Prior to academia she worked in cultural organisations for many years, specialising in audience research. Linda  Dürkop-Henseling is a lecturer at the Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel; she also holds a PhD from that university. Her research interests are sociology of culture and sociology of organisations. Her published works are as follows: Typisch Künstler? Zum Selbstverständnis in der bildenden Kunst (Weinheim: Beltz Juventa, 2017) and Arbeiten in der Kulturbranche: Take the Money and Run? In Typisch Soziologie!? (edited by Obermeier, Claudia and Linda Dürkop-Henseling, 34–48; Wiesbaden: Beltz Juventa, 2018). ix

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Michael Gautier  is an editor at the Swiss Parliament. His research interests include the sociology of culture and the arts. His latest publication is Passion und Kalkül. Zur beruflichen Bewährung in der Galerie (Passion and Strategy. On the Prerequisites for Coping with the Gallerist’s Professional Challenges) (Frankfurt/New York 2019). Andrea  Glauser  is Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna. Her research interests cover the sociology of arts, cultural sociology, urban studies, sociological theory, and qualitative research methods. Denis Hänzi  is a lecturer at the Bern University of Teacher Education. His research interests include theatre, social order, and collective imaginaries. He is working on a book on potentialism as the upcoming societal regime in contemporary capitalist countries. Johannes  M.  Hedinger  is a curator, researcher, educator, artist, and author working in the field of contemporary art. He is the director of the Institute for Land and Environmental Art and a lecturer at the Zurich University of the Arts and at the University of Cologne. His focus and research topics include art strategies, art world studies, art market studies, sociology of art, socially engaged art, participatory art, art in public sphere, land and environmental art, urban art, transdisciplinarity, intermedia, cultural hacking, and artistic research. Patricia  Holder holds an MA in cultural studies from Goldsmiths College, the University of London. As a researcher, she has mainly been interested in the fields of artistic and creative labour in the last years. Clara Lévy  is a professor at the University of Paris 8 (Institut d’études européennes). Her research interests include sociology of art, sociology of literature, and sociology of identities. Séverine  Marguin is a postdoctoral researcher at the Collaborative Research Center 1265 “Refiguration of spaces”. Her research interests are design research, experiment, knowledge, sciences studies, and architecture. Thomas  Mazzurana studied sociology and business informatics in Vienna and St. Gallen, where he received his PhD in 2017. His research interests cover the sociology of art and the sociology of the family.

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Olivier  Moeschler is an associate researcher at the University of Lausanne, Head of Cultural Statistics at Federal Statistical Office (FSO), and teaches at Haute École de Gestion (HEG) in Geneva. He is interested in the various aspects raised by the sociological analysis of cinema, culture, cultural policies, media, and the arts. He is the president of the Research committee Sociology of Arts and Culture (RC-SAC) of the Swiss Sociological Association (SSA). Takemitsu  Morikawa  is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Faculty of Letters at Keio University, Tokyo, Japan. His focus is on sociological theory, history of sociology, sociology of culture, and sociology of knowledge. Nathalie  Moureau is Professor of Economics at the University of Montpellier 3. Her research interest is cultural economics and more especially the art market, and many books and papers of hers on this topic have been published. Dave O’Brien  is Chancellor’s Fellow in Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Edinburgh. Several of his works on the sociology of culture, culture-led urban regeneration, and inequalities in cultural labour markets have been published. Alain  Quemin  is Exceptional Class Professor of Sociology of Art at Université Paris 8 / Institut d’études européennes and an honorary member of Institut Universitaire de France. He specialises in the sociology of art markets and institutions. He also studies visitors’ surveys, the internationalisation of the visual arts, and the social construction of artistic reputations and consecration for visual artists. Anne-Sophie  Radermecker  is a BAEF Fellow at Duke Art Law and Markets Initiative (Durham, NC). Her main research interests deal with art market studies, the economics of the artist’s name, and anonymity in art. Valérie  Rolle  holds a chair for Sociology of Art and Culture at the University of Nantes. She has conducted extensive research on creative work such as tattoo, theatre, and graphic design. She is working on the field of contemporary art in Nantes.

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Robert Schäfer  is a researcher and a lecturer at the University of Fribourg and a lecturer at the Distance University of Switzerland. His areas of expertise are qualitative methods, cultural sociology, sociology of religion, and social theory. Franz  Schultheis is Professor of Sociology at Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany, and President of Bourdieu Foundation. His research fields are sociology of arts, creative economy, work worlds, and social exclusion. Erwin Single  is a research associate at the Institute of Sociology at the University of St. Gallen. He is co-writer of the research publications When Art Meets Money and Art Unlimited. Mark Taylor  is Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Methods (Sociology) at the Sheffield Methods Institute, University of Sheffield, and is AHRC Leadership Fellow (Creative Economy) until 2021. His research interests are in the sociology of culture: in consumption, production, and education, and its relationship with inequality. Anna Uboldi  is a PhD scholar in applied sociology and methodology of social research at the University of Milano-Bicocca. Her main research interests focus on sociology of art, education, inequalities and youth condition, Bourdieu’s theory, and qualitative methods. Désirée  Waibel is a PhD candidate and a lecturer at SOCIUM— Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy at the University of Bremen and a lecturer at the Distance University, Switzerland. Her research areas are sociological theory, the sociology of expertise, and the sociology of valuation. Linzhi Zhang  is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts at Birmingham City University and an affiliated researcher in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge, where she received her PhD. Her research concerns the production of fine arts in post-socialist China.

List of Figures

Fig. 5.1 Fig. 5.2 Fig. 5.3 Fig. 5.4 Fig. 5.5 Fig. 5.6 Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 7.1 Fig. 7.2 Fig. 7.3

Fig. 7.4 Fig. 8.1 Fig. 8.2

ACM dimensions inertia 108 Space of professional positions (Dim1 and Dim2) 109 Clouds of individuals, cluster membership, and sex 112 Clouds of individuals, diploma, age, and partner situation 115 Self-presentation on official documents 118 Motivations to become an artist 119 The differentiated art system 138 Leading concepts of artistic actions in the art system 143 Hishikawa, Moronobu. “After a Tune” 「 ( 低唱の後」), ca. 1673–81, in the collection of Keio University Libraries 173 Suzuki, Harunobu. “Tea-stall of O-Sen” 「 ( おせん茶屋」), ca. 1764–1772, in the collection of Tobacco and Salt Museum in Tokyo174 Kitagawa, Utamaro. “Eight Views of Famous Teahouse Beauties: The Beauty Okita Looking into a Mirror” 「 ( 名所腰掛八景 鏡」), ca. 1800–1806, in the collection of Keio University Libraries 175 Tôshû-sai Sharaku. “The Actor Ôtani Oniji as Edobei” 「 ( 三代目大谷鬼次の江戸兵衛」), 1794, in the collection of Tokyo National Museum 176 Distribution by attribution qualifier (n = 733)195 Average length of notes (or total number of words) by attribution qualifier 195 xiii

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List of Figures

Fig. 8.3 Price index by attribution qualifier (By = 100) 203 Fig. 9.1 Example of an artist file in the archives of Documenta from Kassel223 Fig. 9.2 Examples of collective-artist’s file in the archives of Documenta from Kassel 224

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Table 2.2 Table 2.3 Table 3.1 Table 5.1 Table 5.2 Table 5.3 Table 5.4 Table 8.1 Table 8.2 Table 9.1 Table 13.1 Table 13.2 Table 13.3 Table 13.4

The most frequently invited writers on Apostrophes between 1975 and 1989 Sales figures in France of Modiano’s works before and after the Nobel Prize Works in translation available in a selection of foreign countries before and after the Nobel Prize Overview of Formation’s critiques, justifications, and pre-emptions of counter-critique Comparison of the socio-demographic profile of visual artists (respondents sample), Swiss visual artists, and Swiss working population Active modalities Sample composition Illustrative modalities Descriptive statistics—Average and Median Prices by Attribution Qualifier Results of the Hedonic Regression by Attribution Qualifier Collective membership in the various editions of Documenta from Kassel (1955–2012) Ranking of artist by country on the art scene, 2017 Marking artistic quality according to Roger de Piles Institutions’ rating Artists’ ranking

32 38 41 68 102 106 112 123 202 203 225 325 328 329 330 xv

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Table 13.5 Top 10 young contemporary artists (under 30)— breakdown by turnover Table 14.1 Star galleries and other important ones in France in terms of integration to the contemporary art world Table 14.2 Ranking in terms of medium range of the top ten artists in the rosters Table 14.3 Overall rank: Comparison of the two rankings in terms of recognition of the gallery and access to the market and in terms of “quality” of its roster

332 354 356 358

1 Introduction Andrea Glauser, Patricia Holder, Thomas Mazzurana, Olivier Moeschler, Valérie Rolle, and Franz Schultheis

This book draws on the papers presented at a congress at the University of St. Gallen in 2016 under the title “Art and Market: Alienation or Emancipation?” Organised by the Swiss Sociological Association (SSA)’s Sociology of Arts and Culture Research committee (RC-SAC) in collaboration with the St. Gallen Institute of Sociology and supported by the Swiss Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences (SAHS), this event

We warmly thank Joanne Walker for the quality of the proofreading of this introduction in English, and the Centre nantais de sociologie (CENS—UMR 6025) of the University of Nantes for sponsoring it.

A. Glauser University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna, Austria e-mail: [email protected] P. Holder • T. Mazzurana University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] O. Moeschler (*) University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Glauser et al. (eds.), The Sociology of Arts and Markets, Sociology of the Arts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39013-6_1

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sought to discuss the complex and changing relationship between the arts and the market.1 In analysis of art as well as in common representations of artistic creation, the market has often been ascribed an ambivalent role. Some authors have suggested the market brings about the commodification or even the bondage of art. According to the Frankfurt School, the “cultural industry”, as an integrated economic and technological system, produces and disseminates standardised cultural products aimed at fulfilling needs that it itself creates from scratch and at encouraging consumers to conform to dominant norms (Adorno and Horkheimer 1947). In turn, the figure of the “accursed artist” or “artiste maudit” who continues to create pieces of art even when she or he cannot sell them, is often presented as the epitome of “authentic” creation. From this point of view, genuine art only becomes possible by escaping the market, thanks to non-market support, for instance, in the form of private grants or state subsidies. In his seminal analysis of “the rules of art”, which focused specifically on literature but has a wider scope of application, Pierre Bourdieu (1993) showed that over time, modern artistic creation has formed relatively autonomous production fields, establishing a “reversed economy”. In the latter, art is believed to be valued according to its aesthetic rather than its  The scientific committee was, at the time, composed of Andrea Glauser (University of Lucerne), Jens Kastner (Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna), Olivier Moeschler (University of Lausanne), Alain Quemin (University Paris VIII), Valérie Rolle (London School of Economics), Ulf Wuggenig (Leuphana University, Lüneburg), and Franz Schultheis, Patricia Holder, and Thomas Mazzurana (all University of St. Gallen). 1

V. Rolle University of Nantes, Nantes, France e-mail: [email protected] F. Schultheis Zeppelin University, Friedrichshafen, Germany e-mail: [email protected]

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economic properties—although, in reality, it never truly escapes economic considerations. In the first stage of their structuration, the fields of cultural production therefore defined their own rules against the expectations of “bourgeois” and “social art”. They were then more generally structured according to a constitutive distinction between two subfields, the subfield of restricted, “pure” production organised around aesthetic norms and the judgement of peers, and the subfield of a heteronomous and broader production responding to market-based considerations. Bourdieu showed that this duality structures the contemporary “market of symbolic goods” with an ideal-typical opposition between the consumption of the “aesthete” and the quest for entertainment. Other sociological studies have stressed the central role of the market in the process of the autonomisation of the arts. Historically, the market has contributed to the casting off of subordination to religion, the court and the nobility, an excessively demanding cultural patronage or, sometimes, the state. This was emblematically the case for Mozart. In his “Sociology of a Genius”, Norbert Elias (1993) showed how the use of subscriptions and concerts allowed the young composer and musician to move beyond the dictates of noble patrons. But while Beethoven (Bourdieu 2001; DeNora 1995), later on, succeeded in becoming an “entrepreneurial artist”, the musical market was, in Mozart’s time, in its early stages, which, paradoxically, both drove Mozart’s prodigious productivity and probably explains his premature death. Svetlana Alpers (1991) also highlighted the constitutive role market mechanisms can play for artistic creation, by showing how the division of labour in Rembrandt’s studio simultaneously reflected and shaped the creation of the market while sustaining the production of art and the reputation of the master. As a sort of response to Theodor Adorno, Edgar Morin (1961) described how, in the “cultural industries” (specifically in cinema), standardised cultural goods are produced by various categories of actors who thereby contribute to the creation of a new worldwide public. The dissemination of artworks requires, as Antoine Hennion (1993) has argued, numerous “mediators”, including technological and commercial actors: for example, it is not despite but thanks to the modern phonographic industry that a stance of “pure” listening, centred on the appreciation of music for itself, was made possible by the opportunity

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given to individuals to buy, listen to and compare several versions of the same piece of music at home (Hennion et al. 2000).2 From a sociological perspective, the market cannot be conceived solely as a set of economic exchanges responding to the interplay of offer and demand. Indeed, the market constitutes a broader social structure, a vast network of human and non-human actors mobilising numerous material devices and collectively elaborated representations and practices (Callon 2017). Art markets are no exception, and often express more vividly the characteristics and contradictions of the market logic. For some decades now, certain sociological analyses have brought to light the consequences of that porosity between art and markets for artists’ career paths. In its way, the “art world” model of Howard Becker (1982) is an affirmation that art, just like every other occupational sector, is formed by collaborative chains of various actors interacting together with shared conventions of production that do not exclude the “social drama of work”, for example, a disagreement about how things should be done according to one’s position in the chain of production and consumption (Hughes 1996). Following Howard Becker’s premise, authors like Pierre-­ Michel Menger (2002) have stressed that the artist is a “worker” like any other professional, who has to organise herself or himself as an entrepreneur, for example, by selling his or her artwork and/or holding multiple jobs within or outside the field of art. From a broader perspective, Boltanski and Chiapello (2007) have shown how the mainstream capitalist economy has integrated the “artist critique” to managerial injunctions requiring professionals to be “creative” but also flexible risk-takers in the face of the precariousness of the labour market. In the last twenty years or so, the arts have increasingly been discussed as being part of the “cultural industries” or, more largely, the “creative economy” and thus an important area for economic and cultural development.3  The scales of appreciation and their translation into market value nevertheless remain what defines the work of cultural intermediaries, the analysis of which has considerably developed in recent years (Lizé et al. 2011; Jeanpierre and Roueff 2014). 3  From 2008 on, the United Nations Conference on Trade and development (UNCTAD) has regularly published its “Creative Economy Reports” (see https://unctad.org/en/pages/publications/ Creative-Economy-Report-(Series).aspx). The “cultural and creative industries” are seen by UNESCO, who published a Creative Economy Report in 2013, as a “new agenda for development” that can be used for “widening local development pathways” (UNESCO 2013) see https:// en.unesco.org/creativity/events/cultural-creative-industries-new-agenda-development). 2

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Historical and contemporary relations between the arts and markets are highly complex and diverse. In which conditions and configurations do various types of markets play a role in the constitution of art and what different kinds of role do they play? How does “originality”, “nonconformity”, “authenticity” or “criticism” relate to market settings? What are the situations and trajectories that characterise the different categories of professionals contributing to the creation and dissemination of art? What role do intermediaries such as galleries or art experts, and platforms such as art fairs play? What about the more and more important place accorded to art rankings? What specificities can we observe depending on different artistic forms (visual art, music, theatre, literature), national contexts, political contexts, real conditions of production and larger historical patterns? The present book explores a much-studied topic in the sociology of the arts from the standpoint of new empirical case studies in different artistic, historical and spatial settings. It illuminates the changes that have occurred lately in various art markets as well as in their sociological analyses. Opening Part I, Clara Lévy’s chapter sheds light on the artificial character of the opposition made in the field of art between artistic recognition within the subfield of restricted production, and economic success within the subfield of large-scale production. This is especially the case for a minor faction of artists (in this chapter the French writer Patrick Modiano) whose highest awards, such as the Nobel Prize for Literature, have enabled them, having already attained a certain level of consecration, to progress to the stage of canonisation. Through analysis of a documentary corpus of Modiano’s promotional materials and reviews, the paper shows with particular acuity the strategies put in place by “cultural intermediaries” (Lizé et  al. 2011), such as publishers, to ensure the conversion of the symbolic value attached to the author, already validated by national and international appraisals, into a surplus of economic value. Such a position finally appears to express a proximity neither to the literary avant-garde nor to the principle of mass consumption. Rather, it seems to occupy a specific place between recognition (among connoisseurs) and canonisation (for posterity, in the public sphere) within the recognition space of the literary field (Denis 2010). The contribution of Désirée Waibel and Robert Schäfer also deals with issues of recognition, but this time in the cultural industries market.

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Based on analysis of the music video and the lyrics of Beyoncé’s song Formation (first performed during the Super Bowl in 2016), the paper shows how the pop artist builds her renown by combining a critical posture, on an exclusively visual level (referring to historical events revealing racial inequalities such as slavery or hurricane Katrina), with the aesthetic conventions of pop music through self-reflection of her star status, on a lyrical level. These results echo Frith’s analysis (2008) highlighting that pop music production seeks to create “a simulacrum of emotional connection” between the artist and his or her audience, focusing attention on the singer (or musicians), beyond the formal aspects of the song. As noted by Orian Brook, Dave O’Brien, and Mark Taylor, the flip side of recognition is exclusion. Part II points out the discriminating power of the market. Through the portrayal of three generations of female artists selected from a data set of 237 interviews following a large-scale Internet survey, the three authors highlight the impact of class and gender inequalities, as well as unequal integration into professional networks in a given area, on cultural workers’ career paths (job opportunities, pay levels, access to funding, etc.). Peripheralised artists therefore justify remaining by a (common sense) vocational commitment to their art, conceived as a passion or “a natural exorcism” (as one interviewee put it) that needs to be pursued despite economic precariousness. In order to be successful on the market—be it commercial or cultural—and to acquire international renown or to exhibit in prominent cultural institutions, rather than continuing with local networks and exhibitions of artistic collectives, a good “sense of placement” is needed. In a similar vein, Pierre Bataille, Johannes Hedinger and Olivier Moeschler highlight the differences in living conditions, integration into the art market and self-representation for Swiss visual artists. Based on a national survey, their study confirms the need to hold multiple jobs to make ends meet for more than two-thirds of the 457 respondents. More interestingly, it shows the disproportionate number of mostly self-­ financed artists compared to a minority being sponsored by the state and, above all, by galleries. The latter appear to be more often men than women, working in a professional field structured around three poles: market success, institutional support, and lack of professional integration. Even though they are supported by cultural institutions, women

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under thirty and over sixty years old have more difficulties in finding success and struggle to be represented in the market. Linda Dürkop-Henseling emphasises the incompleteness of the market as a mirror of the whole range of artistic production. Indeed, many of the 24 visual artists she met during exploratory research produce artwork in a professional way without making a living from its sale. By analysing what she calls the “guiding principles of artistic action”, the author distinguishes four types of creators and, therefore, of integration into or proximity/distance to the art market: the “pragmatic artist” who is just exploiting a gift, the “pragmatic-professional artist” looking for recognition as a “real” artist, the “critical-professional artist” who offers criticism within the profession, and the “critical artist” who ambitions to criticise society with art. In this regard, the inscription of social trajectories in a situated state of the market determines the “field of possibilities” within which the artists project themselves. This space of positions and of “prises de position” depends, of course, on a broader historical context, as illustrated in Part III. In Western as in Eastern countries, the market has offered a major emancipatory light on artists’ horizons as regards the religious or aristocratic powers in place. Takemitsu Morikawa exemplifies this in his study of the sociocultural changes that occurred in ukiyo-e art (printed paintings) in an emergent publishing market. The Japanese case appears strikingly similar to the “revolutions” induced by the invention of the printing press as regards the processes of secularisation and individualisation in modern societies (Goody 1977; Eisenstein 1991). Copying workshops run by the clergy gave way to the mechanised reproduction of (illustrated) books, at first confined to scholars or members of the aristocracy, until aesthetic changes (notably in the customisation of contents and the diversification of genres) encouraged their democratisation. At the same time, the signature of the painter grew in importance. Anne-Sophie Radermecker places the question of authentication (e.g. the attribution of an artwork to a single name) at the heart of a paper looking into the sales of Brueghel the Younger’s paintings in auction houses. Her study is based on a qualitative discourse analysis of 235 lot notes produced by the two leading market competitors, Christie’s and Sotheby’s. Assuming that searching for the artist’s hand is anachronistic

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for Renaissance paintings, Radermecker assesses the effects of academic advances on the selling strategies of salesrooms. However, this “new connoisseurship” arising from the use of scientific tools (such as X-ray, infrared photography or pigment analysis) has only had a slight impact on the way the “market of classified art” (Moulin 1992) works. Although today based on sophisticated levels of identification, it is the belief in the authenticity of signed work that continues to set the price level established by auction houses and agreed upon by collectors. In her chapter, Séverine Marguin uses the phenomenon of “collective-­ artists” to show the permanency of the contemporary art market economy’s idiosyncrasies. Associations of two or more artists who produce works of art together and sign them collectively have increased since the 1960s, typically in critical opposition to prevailing notions of authorship and the idea of the artist as a creative individual genius. Marguin’s central thesis is that collective authorship—despite different diagnoses and the recognition of some groups of artists such as Fischli / Weiss and Gilbert & George—is strongly marginalised in the global field of contemporary art in general, and in the art market in particular. She supports her thesis empirically by analysing art market reports and artist rankings such as Artprice, Kunstkompass and ArtFacts and by investigating the representation of artist collectives at Art Basel and Documenta in Kassel (two major institutions in the international art field). The marginalisation of “collective-artists” is attributed to the fact that individuality still represents the predominant pattern of creative subjectivity in the field of contemporary art—unlike, for example, in the field of music—and that in the context of the art market, the individual artist functions as a “lever for economic speculation”. The world of art galleries and the profession of the gallery owner, crucial to the understanding of the art field, are the subject of three chapters in Part IV.  While all three contributions propose a typology of gallery owners or galleries, their socio-spatial or world-regional focus and their research questions differ. In her contribution, Anna Uboldi analyses galleries in Milan. Based on interviews and participatory observation and on a theoretical perspective that combines elements of the “field” concept of Pierre Bourdieu and the concept of “art worlds” of Howard Becker, she explores the professional

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activities and practical knowledge of gallery owners; furthermore, she is particularly interested in the self-definitions of the central actors and the positions and oppositions in the Milanese gallery scene. She identifies the “integrated gallery owner”, who forms the elite of Milanese art galleries both symbolically and economically, as having a dominant position in the field and distinguishes this type from the profile of the “historical” and the “radical gallery owners”, both of whom occupy a position that Uboldi characterises as corresponding to a “marginalization in the center”. In contrast, “quasi gallery owners” and “aspiring gallery owners”, who largely lack symbolic recognition in the field, occupy dominated positions. Michael Gautier’s chapter studies the professional self-conception of gallery owners and the question of how affinity to art on the one hand and business acumen on the other are intertwined. The sample consists of galleries in Europe and the USA that have been able to establish themselves on the international art market over a long period of time and occupy a dominant position both symbolically and economically. They function, in the words of Bourdieu (1993, 121), as the main “instances of consecration”. On the basis of qualitative research (interviews, biographical analyses), Gautier has reconstructed four different types of gallerists, the “operator”, the “companion”, the “curator-gallerist” and the “adviser”, and sheds light not only on their self-conceptions, but also on the social background and educational biographies that are characteristic of each type. Linzhi Zhang’s chapter, in turn, draws attention to the emergence of a gallery scene in China between 1991 and 2016, in an important contribution to research into the globalisation of the art market (Velthuis and Curioni 2015; Moulin 2003). Zhang argues that the emergence of galleries in China is the result of a process of diffusion in which Western practices were received and reconfigured by Chinese gallerists. The author understands diffusion as not simply implying the formation of homogeneous patterns, but also encompassing processes of adaptation, modification and rejection, in addition to the dimension of adoption. It is precisely the reconstruction of such processes that the author is interested in, bringing to light the differences between two predominant types of galleries: on the one hand, a variation that she refers to as the

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“price-centered model”, which flourished above all in the years of the market boom but became much less present after 2010; and on the other hand, the model of “for-profit exhibition spaces”, which since 2010 has become the formative paradigm. The reconstruction of the genesis and transformation of these types is based on fieldwork by the author. Rankings have met with great interest in sociology in recent years. They now exist in practically all domains of society—in science, regarding cities, in art—and raise questions not only as to their effects, but also about what is documented within them, especially in connection with the field of art: what ideas of artistic work and art do they emanate from, how are these elements operationalised, and how do they then find their way into rankings (Buckermann 2020)? An important thesis here is that rankings generate what they claim to represent and measure in the first place—namely, competition, be it between universities or cities (Brankovic et  al. 2018; Kornberger and Carter 2010)—and that they represent powerful ordering procedures (Espeland and Sauder 2016, 2007; Heintz 2019). The two chapters dedicated to this subject in Part V adopt very different approaches to the phenomenon. The chapter by Natalie Moureau critically analyses the phenomenon of rankings in the field of art, focusing on current rankings or indexes such as ArtFacts, Artprice, ARTnews, ArtReview or Kunstkompass, which are published on the Internet or in the media. She examines the question of how the proliferation of such indexes is to be understood in the field of art (as well as in many other fields of practice). Furthermore, she draws attention, on the one hand, to the production mechanisms of such rankings, which, as she argues, are based on simplifications and typically do not make the methodological approach on which they are based transparent. On the other hand, she is interested in the effects these rankings produce; she speaks of “perverse effects”, which she associates, among other things, with the fact that the evaluated and ranked actors adopt strategies to perform better in the ranking—strategies “which may be inefficient from a welfare point of view within the art world”. In addition, she points out that rankings (can) have problematic consequences insofar as they tend to have “self-fulfilling effects”, like those Robert K. Merton described in his well-known analysis, “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy” (1948), in which he examined the social

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mechanisms that lead to lies becoming true or an originally inadequate description of a situation becoming reality. At the centre of Alain Quemin’s chapter is the question of how a ranking can be elaborated consistently on the basis of sociological instruments and what can be learnt from this in regard to the contours of the art market—in other words, what possible gains in knowledge for sociological studies result from the construction of a ranking. He examines this through the example of a ranking of galleries in the field of contemporary art in France, based on the observation that there have been numerous rankings of artists since the 1970s, but hardly any of galleries. A central thesis is that the phenomenon of rankings, which is often associated with journalism and non-scientific procedures, can function as a fruitful instrument of knowledge in the context of sociological research under certain conditions. In Part VI, the last chapters of the volume explore the prevailing mechanisms and discourses in the field of art in advanced capitalism on the basis of empirical examples and thus also describe the constraints and limits of the art market, which sometimes appear, at first glance, to be spaces of possibility. Using a collective research carried out on the Basel art fair, Erwin Single discusses recent changes in the contemporary art market, where art fairs play a role similar to auction houses in the market of classified art: they set the value of artists and of their production.4 Salesrooms have competed with the gallery system of fairs (particularly on the primary market) since they added contemporary art to their catalogue from the 1980s onwards. However, Single notes that the multiplication of art fairs (from 3 in 1970 to some 300 at an international level in 2018) contributes to the weakening of the market, since the success of these events depends on participation as well as the commercial health of the galleries. Consequently, art dealers have reoriented their commercial strategies, reinforcing the globalisation of a henceforward internationalised trade. While some (the average galleries struggling for recognition) are driven to  As shown in the book, cultural intermediaries usually contribute, alongside merchants, to setting the value of art. Their collaborative relationship nonetheless does not exclude competition favouring the market, observable in the decline of art criticism as well as in the gradual substitution of salaried museum curators with freelance contractors (Poulard 2007). 4

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close their showrooms if they cannot tie into local networks, others (the prominent galleries defining the rules of the game) tend to multiply their group’s subsidiaries abroad (Velthuis 2013). But such growth in the number of art fairs could not have been achieved without the arrival all over the world of billionaires whose purchasing behaviour encouraged the financialisation of contemporary art. These results confirm the observation made elsewhere of the emergence of a “transnational elite” with a “cosmopolitan cultural capital” (Prieur and Savage 2013)—that is to say a fraction of wealthy and well-educated social actors inclined to move out of a national cultural reference framework and contributing, in this way, to a “globalisation of high culture”.5 Even if they are key players in a supply market that cannot exist if it does not meet their demand, collectors are not addressed in this book. While they are usually analysed as one of the actors in a wider chain of economic cooperation (Moulin 1989; Schultheis et al. 2015), recent studies have focused on the variety of collectors’ profiles, showing they cannot be reduced to the figure of the “mega-collector” (Moureau et al. 2016). In his contribution, Denis Hänzi shines the spotlight on the maxim, prevalent in both artistic and economic worlds, that individuals should “realize their potential”. Based on examples from the field of theatre, the educational system and the labour market in general, he discusses the central role played today by the principle of potential actualisation. He emphasises that the idea of “promising potentiality” is a new valuation criterion in late capitalist society and that the figure of the artist is represented in current discourses as an almost ideal-typical embodiment of potential to be realised. The central thesis of this contribution is that the predominance of this maxim sheds light on a paradoxical situation: while at first glance the maxim stands for the possibility of authentic self-­ realisation, on closer examination it turns out to be a “tricky vehicle for capitalist commodification”, which actually limits the individual and the social horizon of possibilities. In his concluding remarks, Franz Schultheis reflects on the paradoxes of a market of symbolic goods reaching astronomical figures but refusing  This internationalisation is not new, as shown by the historian Christophe Charle (2015); however, it differs from nineteenth-century trends by its financialisation (Thompson 2008). 5

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to be considered as another market as a result of an illusio of disinterestedness. However, the exchanges in the field of art are characterised by financial dealings based on legitimacy echoing, for Schultheis, Max Weber’s idea of “status groups” which, distinct from but in articulation with his definition of social classes, underlines how possessing property or wealth interacts with ideas of social honour to foster patterns of social stratification. This leads the author to see the art field as a “social enclave” growing as fast as financialisation and as the number of millionaires—a trend which makes Schultheis fear that art, with this very special position in society, may become just another luxury good.

References Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer. 1947. Dialektik der Aufklärung. Philosophische Fragmente. Amsterdam: Querido Verlag. Alpers, Svetlana. 1991. L’atelier de Rembrandt. La liberté, la peinture et l’argent. Paris: Gallimard. Becker, Howard S. 1982. Art Worlds. Berkeley/London: University of California Press. Boltanski, Luc, and Eve Chiapello. 2007. The New Spirit of Capitalism. London/ New York: Verso. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production. Essays on Art and Literature, edited and introduced by Randal Johnson. New  York City: Columbia University Press. ———. 2001. Bref impromptu sur Beethoven, artiste entrepreneur. Sociétés & Représentations 11 (1): 13–18. Brankovic, Jelana, Leopold Ringel, and Tobias Werron. 2018. How Rankings Produce Competition. The Case of Global University Rankings. Zeitschrift für Soziologie 47 (4): 270–288. Buckermann, Paul. 2020. Die Vermessung der Kunstwelt: Quantifizierende Beobachtungen und plurale Ordnungen der Kunst. Weilerswist: Velbrück. Callon, Michel. 2017. L’Emprise des marchés. Comprendre leur fonctionnement pour pouvoir les changer. Paris: La Découverte. Charle, Christophe. 2015. La dérégulation culturelle: essai d’histoire des cultures en Europe au XIXe siècle. Paris: PUF.

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Denis, Benoît. 2010. La consécration. Quelques notes introductives. Contextes. Revue de sociologie de la littérature, n°7, (online). https://journals.openedition. org/contextes/4639. DeNora, Tia. 1995. Beethoven and the Construction of Genius: Musical Politics in Vienna, 1792–1803. Berkeley: University of California Press. Eisenstein, Elizabeth. 1991. La révolution de l’imprimé. A l’aube de l’Europe moderne. Paris: La Découverte. Elias, Norbert. 1993. Mozart: Portrait of a Genius. Oxford: Polity Press. Espeland, Wendy Nelson, and Michael Sauder. 2007. Rankings and Reactivity: How Public Measure Recreate Social Worlds. American Journal of Sociology 113 (1): 1–40. ———. 2016. Engines of Anxiety: Academic Rankings, Reputation, and Accountability. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Frith, Simon. 2008. Retour sur l’esthétique de la musique pop. Rue Descartes 60 (2): 63–71. Goody, Jack. 1977. The Domestication of the Savage Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Heintz, Bettina. 2019. Good-Better-Best: The Power of Ranking Orders. In The Force of Comparison. A New Perspective on Modern European History and the Contemporary World, ed. Willibald Steinmetz, 306–332. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Hennion, Antoine. 1993. La Passion musicale. Une sociologie de la médiation. Paris: Métailié. Hennion, Antoine, Sophie Maisonneuve, and Emilie Gomart. 2000. Figures de l’amateur. Formes objets et pratiques de l’amour de la musique aujourd’hui. Paris: La Documentation française/DEP-Ministère de la Culture. Hughes, Everett. 1996. Le Regard sociologique. Essais sociologiques. textes rassemblés et présentés par Jean-Michel Chapoulie. Paris: Editions de l’EHESS. Jeanpierre, Laurent, and Olivier Roueff. 2014. La culture et ses intermédiaires. Dans les arts, le numérique et les industries créatives. Paris: Archives contemporaines. Kornberger, Martin, and Chris Carter. 2010. Manufacturing Competition: How Accounting Practices Shape Strategy Making in Cities. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 23 (3): 325–349. Lizé, Wenceslas, Delphine Naudier, and Olivier Roueff. 2011. Intermédiaires du travail artistique. A la frontière de l’art et du commerce. Paris: DEPS. Menger, Pierre-Michel. 2002. L’artiste comme travailleur. Métamorphoses du capitalisme. Paris: Seuil.

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Merton, Robert K. 1948. The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. The Antioch Review 8 (2): 193–210. Morin, Edgar. 1961. L’industrie culturelle. Communications 1: 38–59. Moulin, Raymonde. 1989. Le marché de la peinture en France. Paris: Ed. de Minuit. ———. 1992. L’artiste, l’institution et le marché. Paris: Flammarion. ———. 2003. Le marché de l’art. Mondialisation et nouvelles technologies. Paris: Flammarion. Moureau, Nathalie, Sago-Duvauroux Dominique, and Vidal Marion. 2016. Collectionneurs d’art contemporain. Des acteurs méconnus de la vie artistique. Paris: DEPS. Poulard, Frédéric. 2007. Diriger les musées et administrer la culture. Sociétés contemporaines 66 (2): 61–78. Prieur, Annick, and Savage Mike. 2013. Emerging Forms of Cultural Capital. European Societies 15 (2): 246–267. Schultheis, Franz, Erwin Single, Stephan Egger, and Thomas Mazzurana. 2015. When Art meets Money. Encounters at the Art Basel. Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König. Thompson, Don. 2008. The $12 Million Stuffed Shark. The Curious Economics of Contemporary Art. London: Palgrave Macmillan. UNESCO. 2013. Creative Economy Report 2013 Special Edition. Widening Local Development Pathways. United Nations/UNDP/UNESCO. Velthuis, Olav. 2013. Globalization of Market for Contemporary Art. Why Local Ties Remain Dominant in Amsterdam and Berlin. European Societies 15 (2): 290–308. Velthuis, Olav, and Stefano Baia Curioni, eds. 2015. Cosmopolitan Canvases. The Globalization of Markets for Contemporary Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Part I Creators in the Market: Artists Between Aesthetics, Critique, and Trade

2 Patrick Modiano, Between the Fields of Limited Production and Large-Scale Production Clara Lévy Translated by Phoebe Weston-Evans

Introduction On 9 October 2014, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the French writer Patrick Modiano for “the art of memory with which he has evoked the most ungraspable human destinies and uncovered the lifeworld of the Occupation”,1 which is to say, the period during which France was occupied by German forces from 1940 to 1944. This was the Warm thanks to Phoebe Weston-Evans for her work on this text, which goes far beyond a simple translation.  Peter Englund, former permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=lg1ix8qauGY, accessed 14 June 2018.

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C. Lévy (*) University Paris 8, Saint-Denis, France e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Glauser et al. (eds.), The Sociology of Arts and Markets, Sociology of the Arts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39013-6_2

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starting point for our research into “the making of a Nobel laureate”, the aim of which has been to understand how and why Modiano came to win the world’s most prestigious literary prize and to better elucidate the position he occupies in the literary field in France. Our study adopts the sociological perspective of Bourdieu’s field theory. We situate Patrick Modiano and his work within the broader literary field, and offer an analysis of the critical reception of his novels and of the news of the 2014 Nobel Prize (Lévy 2017a, b). Modiano’s particular case is especially interesting given that, from the very beginning of his career up to the present day, he has coupled critical acclaim with commercial success, which are traditionally regarded as mutually exclusive in the French literary field. As such, the author’s concomitant critical and commercial success provides grounds to challenge, albeit partially, Pierre Bourdieu’s theory that distinguishes between two subfields of art (Bourdieu 1977, 1991, 1996). Bourdieu describes, one the one hand, a subfield of relatively autonomous, limited production and, on the other, a subfield characterised by large-scale production, dominated by a commercial, market-oriented approach: The more autonomous the field becomes, the more favourable the symbolic power balance is to the most autonomous producers and the more clear-cut is the division between the field of restricted production, in which the producers produce for other producers and the field of large-scale production (la grande production), which is symbolically excluded and discredited. (Bourdieu 1991, 39)

It is our aim here to ascertain the degree to which Modiano’s position in the literary field constitutes a challenge or nuance to Bourdieu’s dichotomy. In order to tease out the various factors at play, we analyse the moment of Modiano’s breakthrough into the literary scene, as well as the production and critical response to his texts. This reception initially positioned and then maintained—for nearly five decades—his presence in the field of limited production (acclaim from literary critics, peers, academics, inclusion in prominent collections, attribution of literary prizes, including the Nobel Prize, arguably the most prestigious literary distinction) and his simultaneous presence in the field of large-scale production

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(large print runs and sales figures, almost always republished in pocket format, participation in non-literary fields such as cinema and music). We then consider the effects of the attribution of the Nobel Prize within these two literary subfields, given that the 2014 prize has seemingly resulted in both greater serious literary acclaim in France and overseas, and an increase in book sales.

Before the Nobel Prize F riends in High Places: Modiano’s Entry into the Literary World Gallimard, Modiano’s publisher, gave the following author description on its website in October 2014: Patrick Modiano was born in Boulogne-Billancourt on 30 July 1945. He spent his childhood in various boarding schools in Biarritz, Jouy-en-Josas and the Haute-Savoie. His parents were often absent, leaving him alone from a young age. He was very close to his younger brother Rudy, who died when he was ten years old. This painful episode haunts Modiano’s work. He finished his studies in Paris at the lycée Henri-IV and was awarded the baccalauréat diploma. Instead of pursuing his studies, he devoted himself to writing. At that time, among Patrick Modiano’s closest friends was the writer Raymond Queneau, who would later be one of the witnesses of his marriage. His search for identity through his mysterious and troubled past began in his first novel, La place de l’étoile, published in 1968 and he went on to win the Prix Goncourt in 1978 for Rue des Boutiques Obscures. Gallimard has published around twenty of Modiano’s novels and short story collections. He co-wrote the screenplays for Louis Malle’s Lacombe Lucien and Jean-Paul Rappeneau’s Bon Voyage. He is also the author of Catherine Certitude, illustrated by Sempé and published in 1988 by Gallimard Jeunesse.2  Quotations translated by Phoebe Weston-Evans. The entry for Patrick Modiano on the Gallimard website has since been modified and abridged, http://www.gallimard.fr/Contributeurs/Patrick-­ Modiano, accessed 14 June 2018. 2

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Modiano’s connection to Queneau3 is crucial, especially for the publication of his first novel, La place de l’étoile. Queneau was a friend of Modiano’s mother and had been enlisted to give the young Modiano private maths lessons. More significantly, however, Queneau introduced Modiano into the Paris literary scene and took him along to several soirées and events organised by Gallimard. In 1967, Modiano asked Queneau to read the manuscript of La place de l’étoile. Queneau immediately recommended the novel to Gallimard. In an enthusiastic letter accompanying the manuscript he wrote: Please find enclosed a book that I recommend for the NRF. In my opinion it is an excellent piece of writing and significant in that it marks the birth of a writer (…) As I see it, that this young man, at only twenty years old, has managed to infuse this work of literature with so many questions and torments, is an exploit that is not only astonishing but moves me to admiration. (Queneau quoted in Auderie 2014)

It is intriguing that while Modiano was being actively championed by Queneau, he was also keenly supported by the writer Jean Cau,4 who was involved with his mother at the time and who wrote the preface to the first edition of La place de l’étoile. In 1967, Cau contacted Claude Durand, director of Éditions du Seuil’s collection Écrire, sending him the ­manuscript along with a highly laudatory letter. “I have to say, this really is one hell of a book, a real test for the reader (…). This writer, at just twenty, has a truly unique voice and with one mighty push he has flung open the heavy doors of literature” (Cau quoted in Lamy 2008). Claude Durand remembers reading La place de l’étoile very quickly:  Raymond Queneau (1903–1976) was an erudite French novelist, poet, and playwright renowned for his encyclopaedic mind. In 1924, Queneau joined the Surrealists, and he later cofounded the Ouplio literary group. In 1938 he joined the Gallimard reading committee, specialising in English-­ language projects, before being appointed director of the Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF) reading committee in 1941. In 1954 he took over direction of the prestigious Encyclopédie de la Pléiade, a position which he occupied for the rest of his life. His novel, Zazie dans le métro, published in January 1959 and adapted for cinema the following year by Louis Malle, brought him widespread public recognition. For more information: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Raymond-­ Queneau (accessed 14 June 2018). 4  Cau had formerly been Sartre’s secretary. He won the Prix Goncourt in 1961 for La Pitié de Dieu (Gallimard) and was an important intellectual figure at the time. 3

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I was on board straight away. After getting the green light from Paul Flamand, the head of Le Seuil, I got Modiano in to sign a contract. He came back a few days later, visibly upset. He told me, ‘my mother gave the manuscript to Queneau, and he wants it. Since I’m still a minor, she signed the contract with Gallimard.’ I was so disappointed that I didn’t even ask him how old he was. At the time, the legal age was twenty-one. In 1967, when the manuscript was accepted, Patrick Modiano was almost twenty-­ two. Strictly, it should have been published by Le Seuil. Its eventual publication with Gallimard was postponed until 1968 to avoid controversy after the Six-Day War. Israel is not exactly treated with the utmost sympathy in the novel. That Gallimard asked Jean Cau to write the preface was probably to forestall a potential dispute. (Lamy 2008)

Modiano’s proximity to these well-known writers at the end of the 1960s was consolidated at the time of his marriage. On 12 September 1970, he married Dominique Zehrfuss, daughter of the famous architect Bernard Zehrfuss. Her account of their wedding day demonstrates the young Modiano’s level of social capital: “I have a catastrophic memory of our wedding day. It was raining heavily, it was a total nightmare. Our witnesses were Raymond Queneau, who had been Patrick’s mentor since his teenage years, and André Malraux, a friend of my father” (Zehrfuss 2003, quoted in Cosnard 2011). Clearly, Modiano’s entry into the literary world was greatly facilitated through the network of relationships around his mother and his wife, among others. These intimate connections indicate how he came to be favourably introduced to these prominent publishing houses that would go on to publish his texts.

Prestigious Publishing Houses The role a publishing house plays in the career trajectory of an early-­ career writer patently carries huge importance. The collaboration between a writer and a publishing house is based on mutual recognition. Editors select writers who conform to the publisher’s general editorial direction; publishing houses, like authors, are spread across the fields of limited production and large-scale production and occupy different positions

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therein. Bourdieu proposes three principal groups of publishing houses in France based on the relative proportion of their production that stems from more speculative long-term investments as opposed to higher-­ guarantee, short-term investments (Bourdieu 1977, 25), and his analysis concerns the historical state of the field at the beginning of Modiano’s career. Looking through Bourdieu’s framework, at the beginning of the 1970s, publishing houses in France were categorised as follows: Small, avant-garde

Intermediary

“Big” publishing houses

Pauvert Maspéro Minuit Bourgois

Flammarion Albin Michel Calmann-Lévy Gallimard

Laffont Presses de la cité Hachette

Within the subfield of publishing houses that brought out works with more long-term returns and were geared towards an intellectual readership, Bourdieu distinguishes further subcategories: Avant-garde, becoming recognised

Neutral

Dominant

Maspéro

Le Seuil

Gallimard

As Christophe Charle explains (1985, 140), publishing houses select authors and works based on the literary or ideological criteria corresponding to their image. Similarly, writers have their own personal strategies to establish their particular position within the literary field and choose a given publishing house based on their past literary production and general image. As an emerging writer making his first move in the literary scene, choosing Gallimard over Le Seuil was a significant strategic move of Modiano and of his mother. The choice of publisher speaks volumes about authors and about the image they intend to promote of their literature. Gallimard and, to a lesser extent, Le Seuil have been Modiano’s main publishers. As Bourdieu’s table indicates, they are both situated in an

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intermediary position, between the avant-garde publishing houses on one side and those whose output is essentially commercial on the other. By publishing with Gallimard and Le Seuil, Modiano maintained from the beginning the potential of gaining popular recognition as well as serious literary acclaim; both houses have the capacity to work in large print runs and, in Gallimard’s case, can republish works in a pocket format collection if warranted by the size of the initial run, which has been the case for almost all of Modiano’s works. On the other hand, Gallimard’s collection Blanche is among France’s most prestigious and exclusive literary collections.

Accumulating Literary Prizes The attribution of literary prizes constitutes an important signifier as to the renown and prestige of a writer. Literary prizes follow different criteria, but generally they all have the same effect, albeit with varying degrees of prestige, value and longevity: they promote and endorse a particular work and confer a level of recognition to its author, again within variable degrees of reach, both geographically and temporally, and with varying levels of literary standing and cachet. Modiano’s page on Gallimard’s website and his French Wikipedia entry list the prizes he has won over the course of his career, leading up to the Nobel Prize in 2014. Some are for a particular novel, and others are for his complete body of work at the time of the prize attribution. Prizes and awards for the complete works: The Prince Pierre of Monaco Literary Prize (1984) Grand prix de Littérature Paul-Morand—Académie française (2000) Cino Del Duca World Prize (2010) The Marguerite-Duras—BNF Prize (2011)5 The Austrian State Prize for European Literature (2012)  The Marguerite Duras—BNF Prize is awarded in rotation for works of theatre, film and literature. In 2011, the jury was presided over by Alain Vircondelet, a university professor and Duras specialist, and included actors, writers, critics and journalists. https://www.margueriteduras.org/films-­ autres/prix-marguerite-duras, accessed 14 June 2018. 5

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Prizes for particular novels: Roger-Nimier Prize 1968 (La place de l’étoile) Félix-Fénéon Prize 1969 (La place de l’étoile) Grand prix du roman de l’Académie française 1972 (Les Boulevards de ceinture) Prix des libraires (Booksellers Award) 1976 (Villa Triste) Prix Goncourt 1978 (Rue des Boutiques Obscures) The Relay Prize 1990 (Voyage de noces)6 Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature (funded by the department of Charentes) 2002 (La Petite Bijou)7 Given this extensive list of accolades, it is clear that Modiano’s literary status was quickly recognised by his peers. Awards began from his very first publication and include some of the most prestigious literary prizes, notably the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie française in 1972 and the Prix Goncourt in 1978. Sylvie Ducas describes: the fundamentally ambivalent nature of the prize system in the French literary field: a prize is simultaneously a national institution that takes place in the plush interiors of legendary Parisian restaurants, perpetuating timeworn traditions of literary recognition and norms, as well as a media-­ advertising tool at the heart of publishing houses’ marketing strategies and an integral part of the book industry. (Ducas 2010, 1)

Ducas notes that “competitions between publishing houses have long since replaced the era of the great literary battles”. These remarks could be  This is a hybrid prize since it is bestowed by a jury made up of both professionals and readers. The Babelio website provides the following description: “Every year, we choose one novel from a new selection of excellent books. Laureates are chosen for the quality of their writing style and originality of plot. Each year, a new jury is assembled, made up of people working in the travel industry, journalists, writers, members of Relay, united by a shared passion for books in all their forms, and for reading in all means of transport.” https://www.babelio.com/prix/86/Relay-des-voyageurs-­ lecteurs, accessed 14 June 2018. 7  The Jean Monnet Prize for European Literature, founded in 1995, is awarded to European authors for works written in or translated into French. The prize is funded and sponsored by the Department of Charentes, and the selection committee is made up of writers, critics, and journalists. http://www. litteratures-europeennes.com/fr/rubrique-2615-prix-jean-monnet.html, accessed 14 June 2018. 6

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extrapolated to the global literary field and its international prizes, of which the Nobel Prize is the most prestigious. Every year, however, the announcement of the winner is inevitably accompanied by media criticism, debate and sometimes scandal. Ducas adds: literary prizes are driven by opposing systems of logic; literary on the one hand, recognising the artistic talent of a work and an author, and economic on the other, focusing on a book’s print runs and sales. This contradiction makes literary prizes an excellent starting point in studying the economy of symbolic commodities and the struggles and power plays for literary status (…). Investigating the development of prizes towards more popular forms and the progressive establishment of a new kind of literary value—commercial, dramatic, media-friendly, democratic and based on consensus— demonstrates how the relationship between critical assessment and literary value has shifted from what it was in traditional literary spheres. (Ducas 2010, 2)

It is interesting to note that literary prizes are, first and foremost, thought to demonstrate a particular author’s literary merit in the eyes of their peers and therefore the writer’s establishment within the field of limited production. However, in reality, prizes are accompanied not only by symbolic value; they often come with material return. Some prizes come with a lump sum of money. Among the prizes awarded to Modiano, the Grand prix de Littérature Paul-Morand de l’Académie française was awarded with 300,000 francs (about 45,000 euros), the Cino Del Duca World Prize with 300,000 euros, the Marguerite Duras Prize (donated by Pierre Bergé) with 15,000 euros and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature with 25,000 euros. In addition to these figures, there is also the sum of one million euros that comes with the Nobel Prize in Literature. Aside from monetary rewards, literary prizes often entail increased media attention to the author and the winning work(s), especially for those prizes which themselves attract more media attention, which, of course, can have a very direct effect on sales figures. Literary prizes make it more likely for a novel to be translated. (…) While it is undeniable that literary prizes are seen as a label of quality and for this reason, prize-winning books are more sought after, the increased potential

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for translation of an award-winning novel is also to do with editorial policy and commercial strategy which is centred around the promotion of literary prizes overseas. (Ducas 2013, 94)

The effects of prestigious national prizes, such as the Prix Goncourt, are, of course, amplified when it comes to the Nobel Prize in Literature. The economic consequences of the Nobel are particularly important, as Modiano’s editor, Antoine Gallimard, noted on the day of the prize announcement, when a journalist asked him what the prize represented for Gallimard: It has a significant effect, of course, in terms of economic impact. It is a huge deal for the publishing house and for the author. We have already issued another substantial print run of 100,000 copies for Modiano’s latest novel Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier [which came out one week before the Nobel].8 When Le Clézio won the prize in 2008, his novel, which came out that October, Ritournelle de la faim, sold 350,000 copies. The Nobel is a huge literary prize which affects not only the sales of the most recent publication, but also the whole body of work. It also really speeds things up in terms of selling foreign rights. (Gallimard quoted in Aïssaoui 2014)

Academic Recognition As well as being published by Gallimard and winning several literary prizes, critical discourse not only in the press—general and literary—but also within universities started to develop around Modiano’s body of work quite quickly. Every critical affirmation contains, on the one hand, a recognition of the value of the work which occasions it, which is thus designated as a worthy object of legitimate discourse (…) and on the other hand an affirmation of its own legitimacy. Critics declare not only their judgement of the work but also claim their right to talk about it and judge it. In short, they take  The English translation, So You Don’t Get Lost in the Neighbourhood (trans. Euan Cameron) was published by MacLehose and came out in 2015. 8

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part in a struggle for the monopoly of legitimate discourse about the work of art, and consequently in the production of value of the work of art. (Bourdieu 1991, 35–36)

For many scholars, Modiano and his novels have become a subject of research, and a number of masters and doctoral theses have been written on his work: in October 2014, the online database of French doctoral theses showed that there were sixty-one theses, completed or under way, either exclusively on Modiano’s work or in conjunction with other authors.9 Scholarly interest has not been limited to France or French-speaking countries, however. Alice Kaplan, head of the French Department at Yale, where she teaches courses on Modiano’s work, gave an interview in Libération after the Nobel Prize announcement. She explained that there was already a significant level of academic interest in Modiano’s work, though to a lesser extent in the United States. Modiano has been published, before his Nobel Prize, in translation in America by Verba Mundi, which also publishes works by Le Clézio, the most recent French Nobel Prize laureate before Modiano. The level of scholarly interest is indicated by the sixteen theses on Modiano’s work written in American universities since 1987, “which is not negligible for a contemporary foreign writer”, according to (Kaplan quoted in FranckDumas 2014). In her opinion, people are attracted by Modiano’s laconic style and language, which is highly accessible both in French and in English. However, she sees an impediment to the reception of his novels overseas: [T]he precision of Paris-based references throughout his texts is incredible— all the street names and addresses, which brilliantly capture the atmospheres of different neighbourhoods. You probably have to know Paris a little at least in order to pick up on all the allusions. Yet even without picking up on all of them, he is still so good at creating atmosphere. (Kaplan quoted in FranckDumas 2014)  Wikipedia shows a non-exhaustive list of these theses, which gives an example of the themes dealt with in these theses on Modiano’s page (https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Modiano accessed 14 June 2018) identity, memory, nostalgia, autofiction, paternal images, the Occupation, Paris, and so forth. Since the Nobel Prize, however, there has been no sudden increase of theses on Modiano’s work added to the database: there were two new additions in October 2014 and autumn 2015. This could be only a matter of time for France; abroad, the Nobel Prize has clearly legitimated Modiano as a subject of research for students in French literature. 9

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However, Alice Kaplan emphasises the difficulty of studying and analysing Modiano’s literature within the American university system: You can’t read Modiano for his ‘identity politics’, and American universities are obsessed with this approach, which systematically interrogates literature through positions of gender and race. Modiano too is obsessed with these themes, yet his work demonstrates that there are no simplistic conclusions to be drawn. He cannot simply be classed as a ‘Jewish writer’, for example. (Kaplan quoted in Franck-Dumas 2014)

Flourishing in the Book Market Many of the elements we have looked into thus far support the argument for Modiano’s classification in the subfield of limited production in the literary field in France. Since his first novel came out in 1968, he has continued to accumulate the whole gamut of symbolic capital affirming his ever-greater establishment within this subfield. While this is true, from the outset, Modiano has simultaneously established himself in the field of large-scale production, evidenced by the size of his novels’ print runs and sales figures. Around the time of the Nobel announcement, an article in Le Monde (15 October 2014), a major French daily newspaper, noted that Modiano’s novels typically sold between 60,000 and 80,000 copies in the months following their release. Indeed, Gallimard issued an initial print run of 60,000 copies of Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier, published just before the Nobel announcement. From its release on 2 October, it sold well, and according to France TV info, the website for French public TV channels (17 October 2014), it was positioned at the ninth place in the Ipsos/Livres Hebdo10 rankings list. It should be noted that nearly all of Modiano’s works (except for some of his non-novelistic works, such as the children’s books, Dieu prend-il soin des boeufs? in 2003, illustrated by Gérard Garouste, Une aventure pour  Livres Hebdo is a magazine for professionals in the book industry (bookstores, publishing houses, libraries) and the public interested in book news. Ipsos Culture publishes weekly rankings of bestselling books. 10

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Choura in 1982 or Une fiancée pour Choura in 1987) have been systematically republished in Gallimard’s pocket format collection, Folio, after being published in their Blanche collection. La place de l’étoile was published in Folio in 1975 (three years after the collection was created), and there have been two subsequent Folio editions. It is interesting to note that there are certain changes in the text from one edition to the next and that Jean Cau’s preface is omitted in later editions. Progressively, the period between a novel’s first release and its republication in pocket format has decreased: Modiano’s works meet the conditions for being offered to readers in a more economical edition, which, of course, means a boost in sales, and the potential publication of subsequent pocket format editions. Finally, that Modiano belongs—and already did long before the Nobel—not only to the sphere of limited production but also to that of large-scale production is evidenced by his prominence both within the literary scene and in non-literary circles. His appearances in the media have been significant, especially on the literary television programme Apostrophes, even though he does not quite fit the description of the model invitee. Christian Delporte describes Apostrophes as: the new generation’s flagship programme. The show, entirely dedicated to literature, was created in 1975 by journalist Bernard Pivot and aired on Friday nights at prime time. With a focus on the latest news in publishing, novels and essays, it drew a huge audience and had an important impact on sales. The format was that of a discussion or debate based around particular books presented by their authors; a single writer or essayist no longer appeared alone, in majesty. The idea was to create more of a critical environment and to heighten the performative aspect. Participants were invited to make a kind of presentation, so the ideal participant was one who understood the rhythm of television, spoke clearly and eloquently, smiled appropriately, avoided long tangents, communicated his or her message briefly, spoke with controlled voice, gaze, and gestures; in other words, someone with natural ease who knew how to communicate. (Delporte 2009, 144)

Delporte adds that although this description seems to be the exact opposite of Modiano, whose awkwardness, difficulties speaking, unfinished sentences and long silences are well known, he is among the few

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Table 2.1  The most frequently invited writers on Apostrophes between 1975 and 1989 Writers

Number of invitations

Jean d’Omesson Max Gallo, Philippe Labro Philippe Sollers, Michel Tournier Jacques Attali, Jean Dutourd, Claude Mauriac, Henri Troyat Jean Cau, Jean Lacouture, Françoise Sagan Bernard Clavel, Jean Daniel, Françoise Giroud, JeanEdern Hallier Emmanuel Leroy-Ladurie, François Nourrissier, Jean-­ François Revel, Jorge Semprun, Henri Vincenot, Alphonse Boudard, Hélène Carrère d’Encausse, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Pierre Miquel, Patrick Modiano

15 14 11 10 9 8

7

writers—forty-five in total, from 1976 to 1989—to have been invited to the programme at least five times. Delporte shows that Modiano made seven appearances on the show (2009, 139, 151) (Table 2.1). Modiano has also been involved in other non-literary writing projects. He participated in the making of four films, two of which he cowrote the screenplays.11 The most important of these is Lacombe Lucien, which he co-wrote in 1973 with Louis Malle. Set in the south-west of France during the Occupation, the film’s protagonist is a young man who wants to join the local Resistance group, led by his school teacher. He is rejected on the grounds of his youth, and through a series of seemingly random events, he ends up joining the ranks of the Milice, Vichy’s paramilitary arm, and eventually has his teacher imprisoned. The screenplay was published by Gallimard and caused a scandal when it came out in January 1974, prompting Malle’s move to the United States. Controversy surrounded the seeming lack of justification or reasoning behind the protagonist’s behaviour; Lucien’s character was seen as a rejection of engagement, and the film seemed to question the idea of heroism.  Cosnard, Denis, http://lereseaumodiano.blogspot.fr/p/modiano-et-le-cinema.html, accessed 14 June 2018. 11

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As well as writing for film, Modiano has also written song lyrics; he and his school friend from the lycée Henri IV, Hughes de Courson, recorded the album Fonds de tiroirs 1967,12 which came out in 1979. Modiano was also part of the jury of the Cannes Film Festival in 2000.

After the Nobel Prize Attribution of the Nobel Prize in Literature When it was announced that the Nobel Prize in Literature was going to Patrick Modiano, the French press took the opportunity to explore the history of the prize and to discuss the profile of prize winners since its inception in 1901. Le Monde wrote that the prize, awarded to writers producing the most “outstanding work in an ideal direction” (9 October 2014), had been won by 111 writers since 1901 and, if all the data from previous winners were to be brought together, the “average laureate” would be French or an author writing in English, from Europe, a prose writer as opposed to a poet, and male. The Swedish Academy and the Nobel Committee13 The Nobel Committee is formed from the Swedish Academy, which has five members, each of whom is elected for a three-year term. The Committee is attached to the Nobel Foundation. The Swedish Academy’s website details how the prize attribution process is conducted. The Committee compiles the nominations list, with suggestions accepted from members of the Swedish Academy and from other similar national academies and literary bodies around the world, professors of literature  Fonds de tiroirs is a compilation of twelve songs written in 1967 with Hughes de Courson, a musician, composer and producer. The album features three instrumental pieces and nine songs, with lyrics written by Modiano. It was first released on vinyl in 1979 by Ballon noir, then on CD in 1997 by Masq and re-released in 2005 under the title Fonds de tiroirs 1967 by Le Roseau and distributed by Harmonia Mundi. In 1968, a year after they recorded the songs, Hughes de Courson presented Étonnez-moi, Benoît…! to Françoise Hardy, and she recorded a version of Modiano’s song. Two years later, Régine recorded a version of Modiano’s song L’Aspire à cœur. 13  http://www.svenskaakademien.se/en/the-nobel-prize-in-literature, accessed 14 June 2018. 12

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and linguistics at university level, previous Nobel laureates in literature and presidents of those societies of authors that are representative of the literary production in their respective countries. Each autumn, the Committee sends out between 600 and 700 nomination forms for the following year’s nominations list. Individuals or institutions put forward a list of several names along with a description of the nominee’s work. People aren’t allowed to nominate themselves. Nearly 350 names are submitted to the members of the Committee, with around fifteen to twenty being presented in a shortlist in early February for approval by members of the Academy. In May, the Nobel Committee settles on a final list of five candidates from which the members of the Academy choose the winner. If one of the proposed authors is not published in a language read by the majority of the jury, the Academy may commission translations. After studying the works of the candidates in detail, several discussions and meetings take place. It is often the case that writers are nominated several times and thus their works are already known to the jury members. In this case, the Academy will take any of their new publications into account. Following debates, the jury takes a vote at the beginning of October. The candidate who obtains more than half of the votes is selected as the winner of the prize. The four others are automatically put in the running for the next year. The name of the winner is announced by the Permanent Secretary of the Academy in October in Stockholm. The nature of the deliberation process and the final list of five names are kept completely secret and are not made publicly available for fifty years.14 Modiano is the fifteenth French writer to be awarded the prize (there have been more laureates of French nationality than any other; there have been twelve Americans, ten Britons, eight Germans and eight Swedes, six of whom were already members of the Swedish Academy or became members after winning the prize). The prize is administrated and awarded in Sweden, and although there has been a gradual increase in non-­ European prize winners, especially since the 1980s (Weston-Evans and Nettelbeck 2017, 400), the prize has remained highly Eurocentric,  Swedish Academy. Website. Available at: https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/literature/ index.html, accessed 14 June 2018. 14

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increasingly so if one takes into account certain laureates’ dual nationality. In contrast, literary genre is becoming increasingly less varied: plays, philosophical texts, and poetry were more frequently awarded by the jury before the 1950s, until the prize was given to Bob Dylan in October 2016! The opening up of the prize to female writers has been very slow too. Only thirteen women have won the prize since 1901 (between 1901 and 1980, there was up to one female laureate per decade, a figure which climbed to three in the 1900s and 2000s, and for the 2010s, there was one female author before Modiano, Alice Munro, awarded the prize in 2013 for her short story writing, a literary genre previously unrecognised by the Nobel committee, and one after Modiano, the Belarusian writer Svetlana Alexievich, in 2015). The oldest person awarded the Nobel Prize is Doris Lessing, who won the prize in 2007 at eighty-eight years old, and the youngest is Rudyard Kipling, who won in 1907, at forty-two. So, even though Modiano’s win in 2014 was unexpected in some regards, his prize shouldn’t be considered such a surprise, since he fits several of these major “criteria”: a white, male Frenchman, 69 years old, whose principal literary output consists of novels. Moreover, both Modiano and the previous French laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio were translated into Swedish and published since 2012 by a publisher notoriously close to members of the Committee, Elisabeth Grate.15 Nine of Modiano’s novels were translated into Swedish early on, all published by two houses, Bonnier then Norstedt. However, no new translation in Swedish appeared between 1993 and 2012 when Elisabeth Grate Bokförlag, a family-fun publishing house specialising in quality French literature in Swedish translation, brought out three titles in two years. Unfortunately, it has not been possible to obtain confirmation from Gallimard that selling the foreign rights to Elisabeth Grate just two years before he won the Nobel Prize was linked to a strategy to make Modiano’s more recent texts available in Swedish. However, we can perhaps speculate over the chronology of events and surmise that Gallimard saw it as a wise move to have Modiano translated by this particular publishing house at that particular time.  https://www.bief.org/fichiers/operation/3839/media/9076/Suède%202015.pdf, June 2018. 15

accessed

14

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There are several further French links. In 2006 Jesper Svenbro, a poet and historian who spent his whole career in France as research director at CNRS, took a seat as a member of the Swedish Academy. There has also been the recent sexual harassment scandal involving Jean-Claude Arnault, a French photographer and the husband of the poet Katarina Frostenson, herself a member of the Swedish Academy. Among other accusations, JeanClaude Arnault is thought to have leaked the names of potential laureates to the media and has been described as having a strong influence on the Swedish Academy. Matilda Gustavsson, the journalist at the origin of the scandal, has been quoted by the newspaper (L’Express, 26 January 2018) saying: “The Nobel Academy has eighteen members and he was considered by some to be the 19th member, which gives you an idea of how influential he was” (Glydén 2018). It is therefore possible that in 2014 Modiano benefitted from a combination of the support of his publisher as well as factors beyond his control but which may have worked in his favour. As well as the immense symbolic status and literary recognition that comes with the Nobel Prize, it also carries a significant material award. The prize money has fluctuated over the years, but it is now fixed at ten million Swedish krona, which is approximately one million euros. A gold medal, a certificate from the Nobel Foundation, and the prize money are bestowed upon the laureates by the king of Sweden during the prize-­giving ceremony held on 10 December, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death. For each laureate there is a presentation speech, which is inherently laudatory and often given by the Permanent Secretary, providing an institutional contextual overview. This is followed by the acceptance speech delivered by the authors themselves. These speeches provide the opportunity for the laureates to outline their work and their artistic aspirations and outlook. Much of Patrick Modiano’s acceptance speech delivered in December 2014  in Stockholm was reprinted in the French press on the same day or the day after, and was published by Gallimard in the collection Blanche in February 2015.

Effects of the Nobel Prize in France We will now turn to the effects of the Nobel Prize on the sales and dissemination of Modiano’s novels. As for all Nobel literature prize winners before him, sales figures and print runs increased massively both in France

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and in overseas literary markets. Following the prize, new print runs of works in French as well as works already translated were initiated, and new translations of previously untranslated works were commissioned, notably into English. Philippe Le Tendre, sales director at Gallimard, explains that the main difference with a prize like the Goncourt, for example, which focuses on one particular novel, is that the Nobel Prize is awarded to a writer for their entire body of work (Mainguet 2015). No other prize awarded for an entire body of work has the same effect, since the Nobel Prize concerns the international literary field, which few prizes have access to and fewer still have as much impact. We must underline the fact that what the agents themselves call the ‘Noble effect’ is in reality the result of multiple strategies (of editors, authors, publicists, etc.); this euphemistic term and indigenous category, in fact, obfuscates and renders more palatable very simple basic economic interests and strategies in a field (literature) which does not overtly value such calculations. That Gallimard published Romans in the Quarto collection (an edition containing ten novels and short stories originally published between 1975 and 2010) in May 2013, coupled with his novel, Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier, appearing just one week before the prize announcement, could lead one to the conclusion that Modiano winning the prize, while not a sure thing, was at least considered highly likely by his publishing house. If he were to win, then his most recent works would already be available in bookshops—and booksellers are well aware of the famous ‘Nobel effect’ on sales in the immediate postannouncement period and a little later at the end-of-year celebrations, traditionally a period for gift giving, books in particular (Table 2.2). Articles in French newspapers and magazines that appeared in the days, weeks and months following the prize attribution bring to light the significance of the Nobel’s impact on sales. On the day of the prize announcement, the immediate effects on stocks of Modiano’s novels were felt and reported by the media, which focused on sales numbers and commercial success. Many newspaper and news websites reported that various bookshops (such as Gallimard’s outlet in Paris and the FNAC, the large retail chain) had completely sold out of Modiano’s books (Beyer 2014). So, we can see that the Nobel Prize, an international prize administrated and awarded outside of France, has immediate effects on the interior market.

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Table 2.2  Sales figures in France of Modiano’s works before and after the Nobel Prize Before the Nobel

After the Nobel

Romans (Quarto edition) May ’13–Oct ’14: 9500 Oct ’14–Jan ’15: 50,000 Pour que tu ne te perdes Print run (Oct ’14): 60,000 Oct–Dec ’14: 300,000 pas dans le quartier (average sales forecast: between 40,000 and 60,000) Collected works Jan–Dec ’13: 41,000 Jan–Dec ’14: 700,000 Sources: Beyer (2014); Beuve-Méry (2014); Aïssaoui and Dargent (2015); Dupuis et al. (2014); Mainguet (2015); Le Point (2014a, b)

One week later, the ‘Nobel effect’ was still in full force, as an article in Le Point, a weekly French news and current affairs magazine, outlined: Patrick Modiano, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on 9 October, is at the top of the novels sales lists this week […] With an initial print run of 60,000 copies, the new Modiano novel Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier, was already selling well since its release on 2 October, but the Nobel Prize has given the novel a massive boost. Gallimard ordered a ­second print run of 100,000, with the “Nobel de littérature” strip, and the 2013 Quarto edition, a collection of ten of his novels, was reprinted to the order of 160,000 copies. His publishers are in full production mode promoting his novels and several pocket format reprints of his earlier novels are under way. At the beginning of November there will be a new Folio collection on the market, comprising Dora Bruder, La place de l’étoile, his first novel, which came out in 1968, Un pedigree and Rue des Boutiques Obscures, which won the Prix Goncourt in 1978 and with 530,000 copies sold and translations in some forty-five countries, is his biggest commercial success. His three children’s books Une aventure de Choura, Une fiancée pour Choura and Catherine Certitude are also being reprinted. (Le Point 2014a)

One month after the prize was awarded to Modiano, Le Point noted that, according to Edistat,16 Nobel-winning authors generally see their sales figures increase over tenfold, and sometimes more in their own country (Le Point 2014b). This was reiterated in the same week by Le Monde:  Edistat is a website that offers estimates of sales of books, bestseller lists and indicators on major market trends in France. 16

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Modiano has already sold 404,000 books this year, compared with 41,000 last year, and Christmas shopping has only just started. This tenfold increase is in line with the average rise recorded by laureates. (Beuve-Méry 2014)

At the beginning of 2015, Le Figaro’s traditional annual list of bestsellers (the only one to include pocket format sales) from the previous year was announced17: The 2014 Nobel laureate made a sensational entry; the Prize has rarely made such an impact on sales. In Modiano’s case, the mythical ‘Nobel effect’ is particularly remarkable […] Over 300,000 copies of this novel [Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier] have been sold, but the impact of the literary world’s most prestigious award can be seen on Modiano’s whole body of work, and his earlier titles in pocket format have sold remarkably well. (Aïssaoui and Dargent 2015)

Indeed, David Ducreux, from Folio, stated that “Modiano’s earlier works have also benefitted from the Nobel announcement. (…) We have made pocket format print runs of 100,000 copies of Modiano’s classics, Dora Bruder, Rue des Boutiques Obscures and La place de l’étoile”. Ducreux adds that, “normally, we sell around 3,000 copies a year” (Mainguet 2015). The ‘Nobel effect’ has an impact on the complete works of a writer, whose time in the limelight is most acute in the few months following the announcement. It is impossible, however, to find out exact sales figures for 2015, 2016, and 2017, with French publishing houses being traditionally rather secretive about their sales figures. When they do release them, as was the case in 2014 with Modiano, the figures given by Gallimard vary quite considerably, depending on the interview. What we do know is that in October 2017, when Modiano’s first post-Nobel works were published, Souvenirs dormants and Nos débuts dans la vie, they went straight to the weekly bestsellers list in L’Express of the twenty highest-­ selling books at second and sixteenth place, respectively (Peras 2017).  “2014’s bestsellers: Musso and Modiano step up, Lévy steps down.” Guillaume Musso and Marc Lévy are “airport novel” writers, firmly in the field of large-scale production. For years they have been among those vying for the top place in various bestseller lists, and it is generally one or the other who makes it to the top. 17

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Effects of the Nobel Prize Abroad The effects of the Nobel Prize are not limited to France. Gallimard was determined to make the most of the ‘Nobel effect’ to promote the distribution of his works in translation in other countries: “Patrick Modiano’s work has been translated into some forty languages, and Gallimard will be making sure that key Modiano titles are available overseas before the Nobel Prize ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December” (Le Point 2014a). Modiano was not very well known abroad when the Nobel Prize was announced. The website Slate.com published an article on 9 October 2014 titled ‘A Reminder to Journalists Writing About the New Nobel Prize Winner, From Wikipedia’, which collated a number of Twitter messages declaring their complete ignorance of the writer, and featuring a screen-grab of Modiano’s English-language Wikipedia page. A notice, added by Wikipedia editor Alvindclopez, was only online for about ten minutes: “To The Reporter Now Copying from Wikipedia. Be careful boy. Primary sources are still best for journos”. Anne-Solange Noble, director of foreign rights at Gallimard, explained that they “expect to reach the sales peak two years after the prize, when all the reprints of his catalogue in France and overseas will be available, coupled with the release of new translations. This should be at some point in 2016” (Noble cited in Bied 2016). In the same interview, she added: The need to act quickly meant we had to seriously reduce the amount of time we would normally take to negotiate rights and bring works out. The post-Nobel period is also a time of intense editorial work; and in this case the work was even more intense because the news of Modiano’s win was such a surprise. Neither Gallimard nor any of the other rights holders had prepared for it. Gallimard wanted translated works to be available to the public before the official ceremony on 10 December 2014, and made arrangements for reprints of around one hundred works in thirty different countries just three weeks after the announcement of the prize. (Bied 2016)

The effects of the Nobel Prize on overseas markets are often even more intense than in France. For Anne-Solange Noble, you have to make the most of the opportunity: “The impact of the Nobel Prize overseas is short

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lived, the next year another author will be in the spotlight. We had to move quickly” (Noble cited in Beuve-Méry 2014). When the Nobel announcement was made, Gallimard had the option of promoting the whole catalogue by selling translation rights, or selling the rights of Modiano’s most recent novel, Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier, to the highest bidders. They decided to take the first approach in order to consolidate and stabilise the supply on the market before agreeing to cede the rights for his latest novel. Gallimard’s strategy to cope with the Nobel was to respond as quickly as possible to market demand. According to Anne-Solange Noble, rights for Pour que tu ne te perdes pas dans le quartier have been acquired in thirty-three languages in the wake of the prize (Bied 2016). It should be noted, however, that rights for Modiano’s novels had already been acquired in thirty-six languages—including Basque and Persian—before the Nobel Prize announcement in October 2014. “In Modiano’s case, the Nobel effect was not essentially to do with creating a market for translation into additional languages. This indicates that the effect is measured principally in the number of reprints in each language for titles already published and the number of new contracts in these languages for hitherto unacquired works” (Bied 2016) (Table 2.3). Clearly, the effects of the Nobel are felt in overseas markets, although with less impact than in France, since overseas sales have remained Table 2.3  Works in translation available in a selection of foreign countries before and after the Nobel Prizea

Country

Translations before Year of the first Modiano translation the Nobel (up to 2014) to appear

Additional translations after the Nobel between 2014 and 2017

Sweden Italy Spain China

1970 1973 1976 1986

5 13 19 17

a

12 12 28 20

The same work may be translated several times and published either by different publishing houses, or by the same publishing house but with some years’ separation. I am grateful to PhD students Maria Ranefalk, Francesca Dainese, and Tang Tianying, all of whom are working on Modiano in Sweden, Italy, and China, for these figures. They were presented in 2017 in the seminar led by Clara Lévy “Patrick Modiano: la fabrique d’un Nobel”. Maria Patricio Mulero also presented her research on the reception of Modiano in Spain

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relatively modest. In comparison, in the academic field, interest in Modiano has increased dramatically. In China, for example, two master’s theses on Modiano were completed before 2014, and there have been twenty-­seven since.

Conclusion In Modiano’s case, the Nobel Prize in Literature has served principally to amplify, rather than change or shift, the position he occupied in the French literary field prior to the prize. From the beginning of his literary career in 1968 and right up to 2014, he was situated at the intersection between the fields of limited and large-scale production. His work was published by Gallimard and Le Seuil. He has received a significant number of literary awards and was recognised by his peers, literary critics and literature professors. Simultaneously, his sales figures have been high and his novels systematically republished in pocket format. The Nobel Prize has resulted in greater recognition in France and especially overseas; outside certain countries like Spain and Germany, Modiano was little known or read prior to the prize. The prize has also had purely economic consequences, some of which were short term—with the tenfold increase in sales of Modiano’s works, and the one million euros prize money—and others which will continue for years given the Nobel’s propensity to create ‘long sellers’ for its laureates. Moreover, it is particularly interesting to note that Modiano’s increasing establishment in the field of large-scale production has not led to a disdainful or wary reception within the field of limited production. The Nobel Prize has given Modiano and his work increased visibility among readers in the wider public as well as more specialised readers such as his literary peers and members of literary Academies. Through the singular case of Modiano we can revisit the theoretical question of autonomy within the literary field described by Pierre Bourdieu. As Gisèle Sapiro notes, from the nineteenth century, “contrary to the economically-driven gearing toward short-term profitability that motivates production in the large-scale market, is the opposing pole of small-scale production which recognises the irreducibility of the aesthetic

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value of a product to its market value and defers to the judgement of specialists (peers and critics) rather than the general public” (Sapiro 2016). The shift in economic logic and the increasing autonomy of aesthetic judgement as opposed to economic performance are relative, as this study has sought to indicate. While there are some periods for which or writers for whom the dichotomy is applicable, there are others who challenge its validity, as for Modiano. In his case, aesthetic value and market value are both principal features of his work and both seem to accumulate and augment reciprocally. Is Modiano the exception that confirms the rule? Or has the time come, with more and more editor’s strategies, when more and more works and authors go beyond Bourdieu’s opposition? Further research on other writers should confirm or invalidate this hypothesis.

References Aïssaoui, Mohammed. 2014. Antoine Gallimard, ‘Je ne l’imaginais pas…’. Le Figaro, October 9. http://www.lefigaro.fr/livres/2014/10/09/0300520141009ARTFIG00419-antoine-gallimard-je-ne-l-imaginais-pas8230. php. Accessed 14 June 2018. Aïssaoui, Mohammed, and Françoise Dargent. 2015. Musso et Modiano décollent, Lévy décroche, le palmarès 2014. Le Figaro, January 14. http://www. lefigaro.fr/livres/2015/01/14/03005-20150114ARTFIG00355-musso-etmodiano-decollent-levy-decroche-les-meilleures-ventes-de-livres-en-2014. php. Accessed 14 June 2018. Auderie, Sabine. 2014. Patrick Modiano, le Prix Nobel d’un géant timide. La Croix, October 9. http://www.la-croix.com/Culture/Livres-Idees/Livres/ Patrick-Modiano-Prix-Nobel-de-litterature-2014-2014-10-09-1218759. Accessed 14 June 2018. Beuve-Méry, Alain. 2014. Prix Nobel, des lettres et des chiffres. M Magazine, Le Monde, December 8. https://www.lemonde.fr/m-actu/article/2014/12/08/ prix-nobel-des-lettres-et-des-chiffres_4534284_4497186.html. Accessed 14 June 2018. Beyer, Julia. 2014. Nobel de Modiano: les libraires sur le pied de guerre. Le Figaro, October 10. http://www.lefigaro.fr/livres/2014/10/10/0300 5-20141010ARTFIG00394-nobel-de-modiano-les-librairies-sur-le-pied-deguerre.php. Accessed 14 June 2018.

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Bied, Marie. 2016. Prix Nobel et prestige sur la scène littéraire internationale. L’exemple de Patrick Modiano. Master’s thesis, supervised by Clara Lévy, University Paris 8 Vincennes–Saint-Denis. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. La production de la croyance: contribution à une économie des biens symboliques. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 13: 3–43. ———. 1991. “Le champ littéraire”, Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 89/1: 3-46. ———. 1996. The Rules of Art. Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Stanford: Stanford University Press [1992. Les Règles de l’art. Genèse et structure du champ littéraire. Paris: Le Seuil]. Charle, Christophe. 1985. Le champ de la production littéraire. In Histoire de l’Édition française, ed. Roger Chartier and Henri-Jean Martin, tome III, 126–157. Paris: Promodis. Cosnard, Denis. 2011. Dominique Zehrfuss & Patrick Modiano. http://lereseaumodiano.blogspot.com/2011/11/dominique-zehrfuss-patrick-modiano. html. Accessed 14 June 2018. Delporte, Christian. 2009. La télévision fait-elle les intellectuels? Intellectuels et télévision, des années 1950 à nos jours. Modern & Contemporary France 17 (2): 139–151. Ducas, Sylvie. 2010. Prix littéraires en France: consécration ou désacralisation de l’auteur ?. COnTEXTES 7. https://journals.openedition.org/contextes/4656. Accessed 14 June 2018. ———. 2013. La littérature à quel(s) prix ? Histoire des prix littéraires. Paris: La Découverte. Dupuis, Jérôme, Christine Kerdellant, Marianne Payot, and Delphine Peras. 2014. Trierweiler, Zemmour, Modiano… 2014, année littéraire exotique. L’Express, December 26. http://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/trierweiler-zemmour-modiano-2014-annee-litteraire-exotique_1635177.html. Accessed 14 June 2018. Franck-Dumas, Elisabeth. 2014. Alice Kaplan, ‘On comprend l’oubli grâce à Modiano’. Libération, October 9. http://next.liberation.fr/livres/2014/10/09/ on-comprend-l-oubli-grace-a-modiano_1118522. Accessed 14 June 2018. Glydén, Axel. 2018. Jean-Claude Arnault, le Prix Nobel du harcèlement. L’Express, janvier 26. https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/monde/europe/jeanclaude-arnault-le-prix-nobel-du-harcelement_1978941.html. Accessed 14 June 2018. Lamy, Jean-Claude. 2008. Patrick Modiano, sur la piste d’une étoile. Le Figaro, July 10. http://www.lefigaro.fr/livres/2008/07/10/03005-20080710ART-

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FIG00305-patrick-modiano-sur-la-piste-d-une-etoile-.php. Accessed 14 June 2018. Le Point. 2014a. L’effet Nobel: Modiano en tête des ventes de romans, October 17. http://www.lepoint.fr/culture/l-effet-nobel-modiano-en-tete-des-ventesde-romans-17-10-2014-1873432_3.php. Accessed 14 June 2018. ———. 2014b. Trierweiler, Zemmour et… Modiano : les cartons de l’année, December 9. http://www.lepoint.fr/livres/trierweiler-zemmour-et-modiano-lescartons-de-l-annee-09-12-2014-1888256_37.php#. Accessed 14 June 2018. Lévy, Clara. 2017a. Le Paris de Modiano: attention, terrain glissant. In Carole Bisenius Penin dir., Lieux, littérature et médiations dans l’espace francophone. Nancy: PUN Éditions Universitaires de Lorraine. ———. 2017b. Patrick Modiano, à l’articulation entre champ de diffusion restreinte et champ de grande production. Revista do Instituto de Estudos Brasileiros, Brasil, n° 68 (dezember): 101–121. Mainguet, Maxime. 2015. Modiano: le lauréat du Nobel quadruple ses ventes. Ouest France, January 12. https://www.ouest-france.fr/culture/livres/modiano-le-laureat-du-nobel-de-litterature-quadruple-ses-ventes-3109979. Accessed 14 June 2018. Peras, Delphine. 2017. Meilleures ventes de livres: nos prix Nobel ne lâchent pas l’affaire. L’Express, November 11. https://www.lexpress.fr/culture/livre/meilleures-ventes-de-livres-nos-prix-nobel-ne-lachent-pas-l-affaire_1959278. html. Accessed 14 June 2018. Sapiro, Gisèle. 2016. Le champ littéraire français. Structure, dynamique et formes de politisation. In Quemin Alain and Glaucia Villas Bôas dir., Art et Société. Recherches récentes et regards croisés Brésil/France. OpenEdition Press. http://books.openedition.org/oep/532?lang=fr. Accessed 14 June 2018. Weston-Evans, Phoebe, and Colin Nettelbeck. 2017. Changing Perspectives: France’s Post-war Laureates and the Nobel Prize for Literature. French Cultural Studies 28 (4): 399–414. Zehrfuss, Dominique. 2003. Interview. Elle, October 6. Quoted in Cosnard 2011.

3 A Star Down-to-Earth: On Social Critique in Popular Culture Désirée Waibel and Robert Schäfer

Introduction In the sphere of pop culture, artistic and market values are most closely intertwined. In contrast to other social spheres, it is common in pop culture to evaluate performance in economic terms, for example, to praise artwork by referring to the pecuniary worth it generates or to illustrate the artist’s genius by highlighting his wealth. But does this mean that productions of pop culture “are no longer also commodities, they are commodities through and through” (Adorno 1975, 13), resulting “in the stultification, psychological crippling, and ideological disorientation of the public” (Adorno 2005, 69)? Or are they rather artistic, emancipatory

D. Waibel University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] R. Schäfer (*) University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Glauser et al. (eds.), The Sociology of Arts and Markets, Sociology of the Arts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39013-6_3

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expressions of and for ordinary people, authentic “voices of the voiceless” against the cultural hegemony of the “power bloc” (Fiske 1989, 28, 163)? As the debates around Formation by Beyoncé Knowles show, questions concerning the critical capacities of pop culture are persistent.1 The song was first performed at the National Football League (NFL) Super Bowl halftime-show in 2016. The performance was marked by political references: right at the outset, for instance, Beyoncé and her dance crew synchronically clenched their fists, all clad in black leather and sporting berets mimicking the uniform of the Black Panther Party. Moreover, the performers danced their way into an X-formation on the baseball field, paying tribute to Malcolm X. After the show, the dancers addressed the once again raging issue of police brutality against African Americans. They held up a sign, handwritten by Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement activists, which read “Justice 4 Mario Woods”.2 The performance’s political references immediately set off a heated public debate. One line of argument focused on the performance’s critical content, either deeming it positive or negative. For example, approving comments stated that Beyoncé is “blaring her voice just when we need her” (Fallon 2016) and that she “embodies a new political moment” (Moore 2016, see also Kornhaber 2016), while disapproving commentators accused her of using the show as a platform “to attack police officers” (former Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, cited in Holpuch 2016) and “to perpetuate the great battle of the races” (Lahren 2016). A second line of argument focused on the performance’s context, questioning the apparent commodification of a serious social justice issue as well as the role of superstars as social critics.3  The videos were assessed on YouTube (NFL (2016); Beyoncé (2016)), the lyrics on Genius (2016).  Mario Woods was fatally shot by police officers in 2015. The sign was handed to the dancers by two organisers of BLM, who also made and circulated a video of the scene. BLM is a social justice movement that took off after the acquittal of a neighbourhood watch volunteer who lethally shot teenager Trayvon Martin in 2012 (Ransby 2018, 29–46). 3  This critique has as an approving and a disapproving version as well. For example, the former states that “Beyoncé has rewritten [the Super Bowl] as a moment of political ascent” (Caramanica et  al. 2016, see also Ellen 2016), whereas the latter ascertains that “the performance didn’t feel purely like an act of subversion” (Battan 2016), that it is “Beyoncé’s bid to be an artist without losing her commercial appeal” by which “politics quickly becomes a mere signifier in the show, instead of a point of interest or debate” (Als 2016), and even that “Beyoncé waited until black politics was so undeniably commercial that she could make a market out of it” (Guo 2016; see also hooks 2016). 1 2

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While opinions diverged on whether it ought to be embraced or condemned (in the first line of argument) or whether it is out of place (in the second line of argument), note that all discussants seemed to agree that the performance was social critique. Indeed, there is a crucial difference between attacking a social critique and negating its status as such. A fitting example for the latter was the issue around Pepsi’s commercial Jump In, which is also full of “references to police brutality and Black Lives Matter protests” (Friedman 2017), but whose critical aim was entirely negated. Immediately after airing, the commercial faced a fierce (social) media backlash accusing it of appropriating current social critique for pecuniary gains and of “trivialisation of today’s street unrest” (Bogost 2017). As a result, Pepsi pulled the commercial and apologised: “Clearly, we missed the mark” (ibid.).4 This is what this chapter is interested in: how does a pop culture production aimed at a social critique “hit the mark”? What are its audiovisual resources to present a cause, to make a social justice issue intelligible? What are the rules to which social critique in popular culture must adhere in order to be deemed “competent”, and thus legitimate? In short, how does social critique work in popular culture?

 nalysing Social Critique in Popular Culture: A “A Voice for the Voiceless” As the example of the Pepsi commercial already implies, these questions are approached from the standpoint of the pragmatic sociology of critique. Instead of relying on predetermined definitions of legitimate critique, we follow the assumption that actors—in our case the audience—are “capable of distinguishing between legitimate arguments and arrangements and illegitimate ones” (Boltanski and Thévenot 2000,  With this example, we assume that the rules of legitimate social critique, as investigated in this chapter, not only apply to pop culture in the narrow sense—as a subdivision of the sphere of the arts—but to other cultural productions as well (in this case: advertising). We thus follow Urs Stäheli (2003), who, using Luhmannian concepts, defines popular culture in a wider sense, that is, as a specific mode of communication that appears in many spheres of society. 4

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215).5 To explore how social critique in popular culture must be put forth in order to be considered legitimate, we selected a production aiming at social critique that the audience deemed as highly successful—Beyoncé’s Formation—and conducted an in-depth sequential analysis.6 For the remainder of this chapter, we focus on the music video Formation, which was released the night before the Super Bowl, and only use context material for clarification.7 Conceptually, we draw on the pragmatic sociology of critique as well as on political theories of representation. While both bodies of work are concerned with the question of how social critique must be put forth in order to be considered legitimate, the former examines different principles of justice—that is, focuses on what is criticised—whereas the latter concentrates on the positionality of the critic and thus focuses on who criticises. In their seminal work on justification, Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot (2000, 2006) emphasise the critical capabilities of actors. They argue that actors are capable of critiquing, justifying, and achieving agreement in situ by invoking different “orders of worth” guided by certain “higher common principles of justice” (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 141). The authors model six universal orders of worth: the world of fame (valuation of renown), the market world (valuation of competition), the industrial world (valuation of efficiency), the domestic world (valuation of tradition), the civic world (valuation of general  Regarding the legitimacy of Beyoncé’s Formation as a social critique, we thus rely on the judgement of her audience, who deem it legitimate. However, note that other scholars have assessed Beyoncé’s legitimacy as a social critic by examining her self-representation, intentions, and former actions. For an overview, albeit primarily concerning Beyoncé’s representation of (black) feminist causes, see Djavadzadeh (2017). 6  Our sequential analysis follows the methodological paradigm of objective hermeneutics by Ulrich Oevermann (for an English introduction, see Maiwald 2005 and Wernet 2014). Note that, for clarity, this chapter does not strictly reproduce the sequences of our empirical analysis, which was conducted according to the music video’s temporal order (see Table 3.1 in the Appendix). While the temporal order is still mirrored in the text, some of the arguments are organised alongside substantial results. 7  This material includes academic texts, professional and amateur reviews of Formation, and comments on social media. The videos were assessed on YouTube (NFL 2016; Beyoncé 2016), the lyrics on Genius (2016). 5

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interest) and inspired world (valuation of creativity). Critical competence, then, is the ability to invoke the pertinent order of worth at the right moment. However, since different orders of worth contradict each other, critique and justification tend to provoke counter-critique.8 As regards our empirical case, Boltanski and Thévenot’s model speaks to the fact that Formation is a social critique that addresses a plurality of principles of justice. Indeed, our analysis revealed that the music video is exemplary in this regard.9 It not only exerts the whole array of orders of worth, it also pre-empts counter-critique by rapidly and systematically switching from one order to another, thereby producing and solving tensions between them in a performative way.10 However, the legitimacy of a social critique not only depends on what is criticised, it also depends on who does so. For instance, even though there were various aspects rendering the aforementioned Pepsi commercial illegitimate, critics focused on the fact that the person solving the tensions between the protesters and the police is incorporated by a White celebrity. This shows the importance of what Linda Alcoff diagnoses regarding the problem of speaking for others: “Who is speaking to whom turns out to be as important for meaning and truth as what is said” (1991, 12). To analyse the rules of representation to which social critique in popular culture must adhere in order to be deemed legitimate, we draw on Boltanski’s earlier work on public denunciations as well as on political theories of representation.11 In their analysis of a vast corpus of readers’ letters to the editors of the daily Le Monde, Boltanski, Darré and Schiltz (1984) reveal that the chance of a public denunciation to be judged as  Consequently, Boltanski and Thévenot register common conflicts (2006, 237–273) and compromises (2006, 293–335) between each of the worlds. 9  While we focus on the analysis of the music video itself, the model could also be used to complementarily analyse different receptions of the song, which we touch on only briefly. 10  For a chronological overview of Formation’s critiques, justifications, and pre-emptions of counter-­ critique, see Table 3.1 in the Appendix. 11  For an English summary, see Boltanski (2012, 207–219). 8

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credible—and thus, as publishable—depends not so much on content, but on the positionality of the involved actors, that is, the size of, and relations between, denouncer (i.e. critic), victim, offender, and judge. Concerning size, the study holds that a public denunciation likely fails to be judged as credible when actors appear as individuals. This means that critics, for instance, must de-singularise or rise to a level of generality from which they no longer speak as an individual, but instead act as a moral authority for a collective, for example, in an institutionalised capacity formally backed by academic credentials. Concerning relations, a public denunciation likely fails to be judged as credible when there is too much proximity between the actors. This means that a cause is best represented by a critic not personally involved or not part of the collective of victims. Of course, such rules of credibility vary depending on the context. According to our analysis, the logic of legitimate representation in popular culture differs in two important ways, concerning size and relations. Firstly, the authority of the denouncer does not derive from formally institutionalised capacities, or charisma of office, but instead from personal charisma in the Weberian sense. This is because, in pop culture, the distribution of worth follows the order of the world of fame, where “the reaction of public opinion determines success” so that “worthy beings are the ones that distinguish themselves, are visible, famous, recognized” (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 179). However, since extraordinary fame guarantees the critic a “voice” by virtue of public recognition, the legitimacy of its use is scrutinised all the more—especially if it is used to speak for particular groups of “the voiceless”. Secondly, the rule concerning the relations of the involved actors is inversed: distance does not evoke credibility, but rather prevents it. Thereby, legitimate representation in popular culture follows a logic akin to what political theorist call “descriptive representation”. It rests on proximity—indicating shared experiences— ascertained due to shared characteristics such as race, gender and other visible attributes, but also “body language, choice of words, accent, and other external signs” (Mansbridge 1999, 645). In other words, descriptive representation is about “being something rather than doing something” (Pitkin 1967, 61).

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In order to be successful, pop-culture productions aiming at a social critique thus need to solve the following problem: On the one hand, critics must appear as universal singularities, justifying why they (and not somebody else) use “their voice”. This immediately sets them apart from the collective of victims, which, in turn, violates the rule of legitimate representation requiring proximity between the critic and the victim. Thus, on the other hand, critics need to appear as part of a particular collective, that is, “the voiceless” on behalf of whom they speak. Since these depictions threaten to undermine each other, they must be put in place carefully in order to pre-empt counter-critique. Moreover, these contradictory depictions must be unified into a “voice for the voiceless” in a credible way. Taken together, social critique in pop culture thus requires accounts of distinction, identification and the unification of both. In the following, we will show that Formation’s critical competence lies not only in the way it puts multiple principles of justice to work, but also in the way it depicts Beyoncé. The analysis first focuses on how the social cause is established in such a way that the viewer is likely to acknowledge Formation as social critique, and not merely as entertainment. It then addresses how Formation invests in the logic of legitimate representation by depicting distinction, identification, and the unity of both.

 stablishing a Social Cause: “Always E the Same Who…” This section examines how Formation presents the social justice issue and establishes its cause. The social justice issue is visually introduced in the second shot with the appearance of the artist Beyoncé on the roof of a nearly submerged New Orleans police car against the backdrop of flooded suburbia. The scenery immediately evokes connotations of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Since this natural disaster is intimately linked to the political and social problems it drew attention to, it continues to act as a visual symbol for the issue of contemporary discrimination of African

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Americans.12 The scenery thus suffices to introduce the social injustice Formation means to address. Subsequently, Formation carefully establishes its cause by visually constructing equivalences on the one hand and by inducing ambiguity on the other. First, regarding the construction of equivalences, note that the cause is established via multiple visual references of discrimination. Because the legitimacy of social critique depends on the generality of its cause, the multiplicity of these references is crucial: it needs to be shown that the cause is not about a singular event of idiosyncratic relevance, but instead concerns a common good (Boltanski and Thévenot 2000, 215). If a cause cannot be raised to a general level, the critique risks a dangerous counter-­ critique: that the denounced state of affairs may admittedly be tragic, but ultimately presents an extraordinary event in an otherwise fair world. Formation avoids this counter-critique by systematically yoking together a variety of singular moments on the visual level, thereby stressing the generality of the issue. After introducing the social justice issue by virtue of the symbol of Hurricane Katrina, the video proceeds with a cascade of references to further “events” of discrimination, which we can only illustrate in a selective itemisation13: the back of a police jacket, the exterior and interior of a historic plantation residence, a Black cowboy, Martin Luther King Jr., a Black boy in a hoodie dancing in front of heavily armed White police officers. Formation thus establishes equivalence by visually associating events that are highly diverse in terms of location, time, and significance. Their adjacency evokes the impression that it is “always the same who” (Boltanski 2013, 37) lose and always the same who win. It is precisely the seemingly random association of events that underscores the  As Napier et al. (2006, 58) describe this coupling pointedly: “The predominant media images in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina […] depict a social rather than a natural disaster; thousands of poor, mainly Black citizens were left homeless by the storm and stranded for days before receiving food, water, or transportation. The catastrophic hurricane and the unprecedented response failure made headlines across the globe.” 13  Note that not all visuals refer to discrimination. As discussed below, lots of them include proud and joyful demonstrations of African American culture as well (e.g. church service, hair salons). 12

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longevity and ubiquity—and hence systemic nature—of racial discrimination. Second, Formation does not simply depict the cause head-on, but in a highly ambiguous fashion. This is especially apparent in Formation’s extensive use of carnivalesque inversions, that is  aesthetic figurations of ironic reversal common in popular culture (Bakhtin 1984; see also Fiske 1989, 81–90). Based on his studies of medieval carnival speeches, Mikhail Bakhtin describes its “peculiar logic of the ‘inside out’ (à l’envers), of the ‘turnabout’, of a continual shifting from top to bottom, from front to rear […]. It is to a certain extent a parody of the extracarnival life, a ‘world inside out’” (Bakhtin 1984, 11). In its ironic reversals of the cause, Formation depicts both victims and critic as empowered, instead of suffering, and the offenders as disempowered, instead of violent. For example, Black women, including Beyoncé, feature as noble landladies who nonchalantly demonstrate the opulent lifestyle of slaveholders, while White police men surrender—showing the gesture known as “hands up, don’t shoot” since the shooting of Michael Brown—on the command of a Black boy. On the one hand, these carnivalesque inversions serve Formation’s claim to the status as a work of art. Art is distinct from other modes of communication in that there is no need to depict the “real” society in order to criticise. To the contrary, in refusing to reproduce the world as it is, for example through reversal, paradox, or parody, artistic communication asserts autonomy (Luhmann 2000, 282–283). Carnivalesque inversions thus allow the music video to take issue with the real world, while at the same time demonstrating that it does so from an artistic standpoint. However, Formation is only ambiguous to a certain extent. Indeed, there are many sequences addressing the cause that are entirely devoid of irony. After the scene when police surrender to the command of a Black boy, for example, a graffiti appears that reads “Stop shooting us”. In another scene, a man is holding up a newspaper, The Truth, featuring a picture of Martin Luther King Jr. below the headline “More Than a

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Dreamer”. These references convey that the cause is ultimately understood as real, and ought to be taken seriously. On the other hand, inducing ambiguity also helps Formation to manage the legitimacy of its representation of the social justice issue. Indeed, Formation fictionalises not only the victims and the offenders, but the critic, that is, Beyoncé, as well. Throughout the video, the artist incorporates manifold fictitious roles in relation to the social injustice, for example, that of a slave owner, or, as she drowns with the police car at the end of the clip, of a victim of Hurricane Katrina. In this way, she visually inserts herself right into the thicket of the social justice issue, but always in an ironic manner—which, as we will discuss shortly, shields the critic from potential counter-critique. The elaborate presentation of the social justice issue on the visual level highlights the most interesting feature of Formation’s social critique, namely the absence of the cause on the lyrical level. Throughout the music video, the issue of systemic discrimination of African Americans is only expressed visually, not verbally. Even when the cause is addressed linguistically, it is visualised in writing (i.e. “Stop Shooting Us”, “More Than a Dreamer”), not spoken by the singer.14 Due to its lack of audible expression, we may call Formation’s denunciation a mute critique. Mute critique is a resourceful strategy not only for presenting the cause, but for managing the critic’s legitimacy as well. First, it capitalises on the enhanced communicative capacity of visuals as a medium. For (moving) pictures, like numbers, reduce complexity and are thus endowed with a suggestive power enhancing the chances of acceptance of their respective argument (Heintz 2010). Second, it shields Formation from potential  This even holds for the omnipresent term “slay”, which is repeated twenty-nine times throughout the song. Even though the word would, in its original meaning (i.e. “to kill”), allow to express a call to arms (especially when used in the plural future tense), it is mainly used to speak to Beyoncé’s success (i.e. “killing it”). Indeed, the singer seems to have influenced the current meaning of the word, which reads rather unspecific. As she addressed the crowd at the premiere of her Formation tour before playing Formation: “If you came to slay tonight say ‘I slay’,” Beyoncé began. “If you slay every day say ‘I slay’. If you came to have a good time say ‘I slay.’ If you’re proud of where you come from say ‘I slay’. Are y’all gonna celebrate with me tonight? Say ‘I slay’” (Bartleet 2016). 14

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counter-critique, for it is difficult to attack a social critique that is not explicitly expressed in words. Third, it allows separating the presentation of the social injustice (on the visual level) from the justification of the critic (on the lyrical level). As we will show in the following section, the discontinuity between lyrics and visuals is a necessary manoeuvre to render Beyoncé’s claim of representation legitimate.

The Quest for Legitimate Representation As a result of the mute critique strategy, one would not know that Formation denounces the discrimination of African Americans if one only listens to the song or reads the lyrics without watching the video. Strange enough, Beyoncé does not lend a voice to the social justice issue presented on the visual level. Instead, the artist introduces herself by celebrating her fame, wealth, and work ethic, and by attacking her “corny haters”. Considering that an easy way to counter a critique is to negate the critic, this presentation of herself in lieu of a presentation of the collective cause is surprising. Why does Beyoncé not sing about systemic racial discrimination?15 Indeed, the success of social critique often stands or falls by the legitimacy of the critic. As we will show in this section, a closer look reveals that the discontinuity between lyrics and visuals in Formation is one of manifold complex manoeuvres which ultimately render Beyoncé’s representative claim for the social justice issue legitimate. In the following sections, we show how they allow for the establishment of distinction and identification between her and the collective of victims as well as the unification of both.

 Systemic discrimination of African Americans is not addressed in the lyrics sung by Beyoncé but referenced by other speakers, such as Messy Mya. Yet, as we will show below, the lyrics sung by Beyoncé are not totally devoid of critical content per se since they indirectly address gender issues (in the form of accounts of empowerment, see also Emerson 2002, 129). 15

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Distinction: “I’m a Star!” This section looks at how the artist is presented as a universal singularity, which allows her to speak for others: a star. From the start, Formation introduces Beyoncé as such on both the visual and the lyrical levels. Visually, her uniqueness is depicted in the aforementioned introductory shot, in which she is standing atop a New Orleans police car that is, like the suburbia in the backdrop, nearly inundated. That she is completely dry, and wearing make-up and a perfectly clean Givenchy gown seems to imply that she came down from the heavens: literally a star down-to-­ earth. This impression is fortified by the movement of her gradually squatting. In this establishing shot, she looks angelic; her golden locks shining against the backdrop of the sky, she is gazing directly into the camera, ignoring the dirty reality of what is beneath her. Her voice first appears after this visual introduction, establishing an account of herself: “Y’all haters corny with that Illuminati mess / Paparazzi, catch my fly and my cocky fresh / I’m so reckless when I rock my Givenchy dress (Chorus: stylin’) / I’m so possessive so I rock his Roc necklaces”. In this account, she valorises herself in terms of the world of fame by referencing instances that made it into the tabloid news (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 184): that she is the subject of conspiracy theories, is haunted by paparazzi, wore an extravagant gown to the Met Gala, and is possessive of her husband Jay-Z, a famous rapper and founder of the label Roc-A-Fella. As it is common in the realm of pop culture, the valorisation of her renown is not only expressed in terms of the world of fame, but in stressing her market value as well. While Beyoncé’s stardom is a prerequisite to bring attention to the social justice issue, it inevitably sets her far apart from the collective of victims. Moreover, since the primary objective of pop culture is renown, putting her voice in service of a collective cause risks being counter-­ attacked as a “‘calculated gesture’ by someone who seeks to make a spectacle of [her]self” (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 300) and thus tries to exploit a social justice issue for profit. Formation pre-empts that risk by bringing up Beyoncé’s distinctive position most carefully. While “I am a star” is reiterated four times throughout the song, Formation invests a

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great deal in explaining Beyoncé’s trajectory in such a way that it not only justifies her distinctive status, but also argues that it is accessible to everyone. To achieve that, it uses a compromise of the orders of worth of market and of industry. On the one hand, Beyoncé’s financial success is justified by the principles of the market world, in which individual competition for the satisfaction of one’s self-interested desires is highly legitimate (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 44–53). Due to competition, the market world is inherently volatile—the winners of today are the losers of tomorrow (ibid., 196–203). On the other hand, however, the justification of Beyoncé’s distinctive position in terms of the market is coupled with her worth in the industrial world, in which greatness is achieved through efficient productivity. This account of the singer features prominently in the chorus: “I see it, I want it, I stunt, yellow bone it, I dream it, I work hard, I grind ’til I own it (…) Sometimes I go off (Chorus: I go off), I go hard (Chorus: I go hard) Get what’s mine (Chorus: Take what’s mine), I’m a star (Chorus: I’m a star) ’Cause I slay (Chorus: Slay)”. Taken together, the distinctive position of the singer is justified by virtue of meritocracy, which marries market principles to those of the industrial world. What makes her deserve a distinctive position, then, is neither luck nor advantage but her inner-worldly ascetic work ethic in a world of opportunities. In invoking the meritocratic ideal, it is argued that Beyoncé’s position is indeed distinctive but also, in principle, accessible to everyone.16 This compromise is risky, since it advocates the values of liberty and equality on the basis of which the social injustice cannot be addressed: if a worthy state is achieved by individual merit, the opposite state must be self-inflicted. To avoid the impression that the star is blaming the victims, the explanation of Beyoncé’s trajectory is thus bracketed by a denunciation of her detractors: “Y’all haters corny with that Illuminati mess” (first line of refrain), “I twirl on them haters, albino alligators” (third line of chorus). In this account it is, at least on a personal level, acknowledged that there are indeed injustices or offenders in the world, diminishing the  Note that this argument could not be made if Beyoncé’s status were justified in reference to her talent as an artist. And indeed, references to her worth in terms of the world of inspiration are completely lacking on the lyrical level. 16

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values of liberty and equality. At the same time, it is emphasised that there is no equivalency between the star’s individual cause and that of the collective. This is important since a naïve comparison of unequal sufferings—accusations of being an Illuminati member or unfavourable reactions to a Givenchy dress versus losing one’s home and being shot—would instantly delegitimise the critic (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 300). In choosing causes that are decidedly devoid of suffering, the distinction between them is emphasised, instead of naively ignored.17 This is also the reason why the artist is only incorporating roles with relation to the social injustice in an ironic manner. However, while only speaking for herself shields the justification of the singer’s distinctive position from possible counter-critique,18 it inevitably emphasises that there is no relation between the critic and the cause presented on the visual level. To constitute a relation of proximity, Formation must identify with the collective of victims, for which it invokes a completely different set of values.

Identification: “I Am One of You” This section looks at how Formation invests in identification with the victims in such a way that renders Beyoncé’s claim to represent the cause legitimate. In order to achieve identification, “[t]he overblown diva image of […] Beyoncé needs to be deflated to depict a down-to-earth, around-­ the-­way girl from an identifiable place” (Durham 2012, 42). As shown in the following, the investment comprises three manoeuvres of self-­ deflations (in terms of the inspired world), which are backed by the depiction of Beyoncé as a member of the Southern African American community (in terms of the domestic world).

 That the audience will not accept false equivalences or naïveté concerning suffering became also evident in the issue around the Pepsi commercial. Immediately after the commercial was released, Martin Luther King’s daughter Bernice King posted a photo of her father being pushed by police and commented mockingly on Twitter: “If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi.” 18  As Alcoff (1991, 22) puts it: “If I speak only for myself it may appear that I am immune from criticism because I am not making any claims that describe others or prescribe actions. If I am only speaking for myself I have no responsibility for being true to your experience or needs”. 17

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Formation achieves identification by means of a manoeuvre that we may call self-deflation, as opposed to Boltanski’s term of self-­aggrandisement (Boltanski et al. 1984). Self-aggrandisement is a manoeuvre to establish generality, which allows distancing one’s individual self from a particular state of affairs (de-singularisation). In contrast, self-deflation is a manoeuvre towards particularity, which allows identifying one’s individual self with a particular state of affairs. To be sure, both manoeuvres aim at enhancing credibility, yet the latter operates according to the rules of proximity. Formation uses the manoeuvre of self-deflation in three analytically different respects: technically, morally, and artistically. The three manoeuvres of self-deflation can best be illustrated by the prelude sequence: Formation begins with a shot of a low-quality screen accompanied by static noise. The screen flickers before abruptly going black. This visual’s low quality contrasts with the professional high-end production that predominates in the music video. It presents another carnivalesque inversion, albeit on the technical level: a well-managed, commercial production ironically introduces itself as spontaneous, defective, and amateur. This manoeuvre is repeated throughout the video, in scenes that give the impression of being filmed by a hand camera.19 Formation also self-deflates regarding the moral standard of its content. In the prelude sequence, the flickering screen reads “parental advisory”. Then, the blinking cursor on the next line spells “explicit lyrics” right before the screen turns off. In including the well-known parental advisory label (PAL) of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the video, Formation warns its viewers right away that it is not compatible with “contemporary cultural morals and standards” (RIAA Guideline). By highlighting the label in such a way, Formation self-deflates regarding the moral standard commonly expected of an commercial pop production. Thereby, it affiliates with artworks for which PALs are commonly issued, namely underground art, which does not concern itself with matching the moral standards of the broadest possible audience.

 Note that implicating its own frame (e.g. displaying a flickering screen or the play-mode) is also an artistic means that allows a work of art to highlight, and play with, the difference between fiction and reality (Luhmann 2000, 101). 19

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To move closer to the particular world of underground culture, Formation uses a third manoeuvre—artistic self-deflation—consisting of directly importing underground artefacts. This third manoeuvre is the most salient, as artistic underground material is deliberately spread throughout the track and music video. A crucial example is the sampling of Anthony Barré aka rapper Messy Mya, whose voice inaugurates the song. Right after the flickering screen, during the first shot of Beyoncé on the police car, we hear a nearly unintelligible voiceover: “What happened at the New Wil’ins [New Orleans]? Bitch, I’m back by popular demand.”20 Mya was a New Orleans–born bounce rapper, comedian, and local social media personality, who was lethally shot in 2010 under mysterious circumstances. He represents an archetype of a worthy being of the inspired world in many respects (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 159–164): his performances were spontaneous, low-budget, vulgar, bizarre, and often incomprehensible, which is the exact opposite of the slick, high-budget, sexy-but-clean, and easily intelligible performances of large audience-­ oriented pop productions. By importing Messy Mya at the outset, Beyoncé is letting him speak for her and therefore with the people he stands for: the underground community of the streets of New Orleans.21 This third self-deflation is further reinforced by other citations of local hip hop artists (such as Big Freedia), local cultural practices (such as bounce rap and twerking), local celebrations (such as the Mardi Gras festival) and local events (such as Hurricane Katrina, via excerpts from independent documentaries). The imported material is pieced together with produced scenes, resulting in a bricolage suggesting proximity and like-mindedness between the pop star and the local underground culture. While these self-deflations allow Formation to escape the universal world of commercial pop culture and move towards the particular world of Southern underground culture, such blatant manoeuvring is bound to

 It is only in the context of Formation that Messy Mya appears to be addressing the collective cause. In his original video, the citation refers to a personal quarrel at a stand-up show (Mya 2010). 21  Note that capitalising on others’ greatness is a common manoeuvre in public denunciations. While in the Le Monde study, it is used to achieve official status, Beyoncé uses this strategy to anchor “her identity to a specific spatial location” and to achieve “hip hop authenticity and street credibility” (Durham 2012, 42). 20

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be met with counter-critique, especially accusations of appropriation.22 Formation pre-empts such counter-critique by stressing Beyoncé’s ancestry. Indeed, the music video invests a great deal in depicting Beyoncé as an authentic member of the Southern African American community. To do so, it invokes the order of worth of the domestic world, in which singularity—a worthy quality both in the world of fame and inspiration—is shunned in favour of tradition, generation, customs, and simplicity (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 164–178). On the one hand, Formation highlights Beyoncé being part of the Southern African American community in cultural terms. On both the visual and the lyrical levels, she is portrayed as being moved by local habits of everyday life, that is, by a “natural behavior” (ibid., 167). Examples include habits such as having “hot sauce in my bag, swag”, visiting the seafood chain Red Lobster after a sexual encounter, driving “El Camino with the seat low”, or “Sippin’ Cuervo with no chaser”. On the other hand, Formation exemplifies Beyoncé’s roots in terms of ancestral heritage, notably right after talking about paparazzi and Givenchy dresses: “My daddy Alabama, Momma Louisiana / You mix that Negro with that Creole make a Texas Bama (…) / I like my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils”. Moreover, this heritage is also passed on, thus ensuring the continuity of generations (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 173)—to a cameo appearance of her daughter dancing in the setting of the historic plantation residence, Beyoncé sings: “I like my baby heir with baby hair and afros”. The various manoeuvres of self-deflation that allow Formation to move towards the particular world of underground culture are thus backed by the emphasis on the singer’s ancestry in terms of both nurture and nature. As the singer expresses “I am one of you” (Dovi 2002, 736; Mansbridge 1999, 645), according to the logic of descriptive representation, Formation achieves identification with the particular collective of the social injustice presented on the visual level.

 Of course, importing cultural material tends to be problematic on both the normative and the legal fronts—and indeed, since publishing Formation, Beyoncé faced multiple lawsuits claiming copyright infringement. However, note that Formation’s citations are widely regarded as legitimate on a normative level. Fan comments critique the fact that the material was not paid for, not that it was used. 22

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Unification: A Star Down-to-Earth Since Formation carefully establishes distinction as well as identification, the crucial task is to show how these contradictory qualities coalesce into a unified persona. To achieve unification, Formation provides yet another account, depicting Beyoncé—as we already noted—as a “star down-to-­ earth”. It is on the back of this account that representation of the collective cause is claimed, by invoking the values of the civic world. On the lyrical level, unification is achieved by presenting Beyoncé’s evolutionary trajectory that is reflected in different layers of her persona, namely, “her outside” (distinction) and “her inside” (identification). After introducing her as a star and reminding of her identity as a Southerner, she goes on singing: “Earned all this money but they never take the country out me.” She might have worked her way up to fame, and might currently be known as a worldwide celebrity, but inside she remains “the same”, the ordinary “country girl”.23 The manner in which the contradictory layers of her persona are synthesised into a unified whole is strikingly evident in the aforementioned line “I got hot sauce in my bag”. She may wear fancy clothes and luxury handbags, but inside she is still imprinted with the habits of the Deep South. The same logic is put at work on the visual level. The most exemplary visual illustrations of the synthesis are the three dancing scenes of Beyoncé and her posse of dancers. In each of these scenes, Beyoncé is depicted, due to uniform dressing and synchronous movements, as a part of a bigger whole. Yet, she sticks out—not only because she is the only one singing, but also because of visual markers such as her long braided blonde hair that contrast with the short loose afro hair of the accompanying dancers. She gets “in formation”, but she is clearly designated as the leader. On the back of this visual unification, the singer assumes leadership on the lyrical level: “Okay, ladies, now let’s get in formation, ’cause I slay (2 x). Prove to me you got some coordination, ’cause I slay. Slay trick, or you get eliminated.” Note that this leadership narrowly adheres to the logic of descriptive representation, too: it is limited to “the ladies”, whereas the  According to Morgan Jouvenet (2006, 77, 197–200), demonstrating that rappers ‘stay the same’ despite their success is a typical artistic resource as well as a market strategy to maintain their ‘authenticity’. 23

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collective of victims is not addressed. However, there is one instance in the chorus where Beyoncé speaks in plural form, as part of a general collective: “We gon’ slay (Slay), gon’ slay (Okay) we slay (Okay), I slay (Okay)”. That the sole instance when the plural form is used in the lyrics, notably for Formation’s omnipresent term “slay”, ends with the singular form is characteristic of the dialectic unification of identification and distinction. While the singer neither claims direct leadership over the collective nor directly denounces the injustices against them, she is ultimately claiming representation by virtue of an offering. This offering is only intelligible in the conjunction of lyrics and visuals: sitting on the police car, and later standing on it with her arms wide open, the singer proclaims: “I might get your song played on the radio station, ’cause I slay (2 ×), You just might be a black Bill Gates in the making, ’cause I slay. I just might be a black Bill Gates in the making.” In invoking the figure of a self-made, charitable billionaire, Formation constitutes a compromise between the world of fame, which is, again, evaluated in economic terms, and those of the civic world (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 319). The artist openly celebrates her renown and her wealth, but also acknowledges that it comes with a responsibility for the common good. Because Beyoncé excels in the world of pop culture, she might be able to help “you”, that is, to help generalised others to get on the same path. At the end of the video, Beyoncé drowns in her Givenchy gown, lying on the New Orleans police car upon which she stood at the beginning, as if to say: “I am not you, but I am with you”.

Conclusion This chapter started by stating the obvious: that some works in pop culture are understood and debated as social critique, while others are not. It then proceeded to ask why. To do so, it did not theorise on the critical capacity of popular culture categorically; that is, it did not offer an evaluation of whether productions of popular culture are art or business, or whether they are a genuine expression of the artists’ opinions and positions. Nor did it theorise on the general role of social critique in popular culture, let alone on its impact on contemporary society. Based on a

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sequential analysis of one successful pop-culture production, the chapter instead aimed at elucidating the complex ways in which a social critique must be put forth in order to produce legitimacy. Indeed, using “the voice for the voiceless” is intrinsically risky because of the rules of legitimate representation. To adhere to those rules, social critique in pop culture must provide contradictory representative accounts which threaten to undermine each other, and thus risk to be met by counter-critique. Throughout the chapter, we showed how Formation adheres to these rules and pre-empts those risks by means of various manoeuvres: ambiguity, discontinuity between visuals and lyrics, self-deflation, and systematic switching between different orders of worth. In doing so, Formation performs a complex dialectic of distinction, identification, and the unification of both, for which it establishes various compromises between different orders of worth. This case study allows reflecting more generally on how popular culture enables social critique, but also limits it. Concerning enablement, collective causes can benefit greatly from compromises with the worlds of inspiration and fame to call reality into question and to inform a large audience of a cause (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 296, 317, see also Alcoff 1991, 29). Such a communication of a social justice issue would hardly be possible, let alone successful, without the various media resources that the popular format holds. For instance, Formation is largely enabled by the power of visuals to convey suggestive impressions, which are more likely to be accepted than explicit arguments. It also uses the potential of moving images, or the passage of highly versatile and flexible impressions in a short time frame, and is thus able to quickly produce and resolve contradictory depictions. Moreover, it heavily draws upon the possibility of playing with concurring media levels. The simultaneity of multiple  media levels allows assembling various audible and visual materials in a way that enables the linking as well as the separation of their respective meanings. Overall, the formal characteristics of popular communication, that is, accessibility, understandability and high connectivity (Stäheli 2003, 281), are enabling a social critique to be put forth in such a manner that it is not only understood as such but that it is deemed as legitimate as well.

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However, there are also limits to social critique in popular culture. Paradoxically, these limits derive from the very compromises that enable social critique in popular culture, that is, the use of “a voice for the voiceless”, to begin with. While compromises are necessary, they are also fragile, since the common good “remains unspecified (…), so it is always possible to denounce a compromise as a sacrifice of principle” (Boltanski and Thévenot 2006, 20). From the perspective of the civic world, Formation’s public denunciation of systemic discrimination of African Americans is limited in multiple ways. Due to the compromise with the world of fame, for instance, it is not able to draw a sharp distinction between victims and offenders. For grandeur in the world of fame depends upon recognition by the largest possible audience, and thus must depict the issue, as well as the involved actors, in a way that is most inclusive, and therefore rather unspecified. To this effect, Formation addresses the cause in a positive fashion, and depicts both victims and critic as empowered instead of suffering, while offenders appear as disempowered instead of violent. In the end, Formation cannot escape the values that are predominant in the realm of pop culture, where artistic and market values are most closely intertwined. This is evident in the only direct claim the singer makes regarding the collective cause, that is, the offering according to which she might be able to help provide “you” with fame and money. Moreover, in the very last line of the song’s lyrics, Beyoncé states: “Always stay gracious, best revenge is your paper,” while looking directly into the camera and rubbing her thumbs repeatedly over the tip of the index and middle finger. In suggesting such economic, individualistic, and somewhat passive “solutions”, Formation stays true to the values that make worthy beings in the realm of pop culture but are of little significance in the civic world. Paradoxically, it is the critical competence of Formation that limits its critical capacity: as much as it prevents Formation from naively speaking for the victims, it also prevents it from advocating for the collective of victims in a way that is meaningful in the civic world. Acknowledgements  The authors thank Anna Sommer and Daniel Künzler for their expertise in African and African American culture, the editors for their thorough reviews, and Pranathi Diwakar and Ewgenia Baraboj for their diligent copyediting.

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Appendix Table 3.1  Overview of Formation’s critiques, justifications, and pre-emptions of counter-critique Order of worth Values

Empirical examples (chronological order)

Investments in self-presentation

Potential counter-critique (to be pre-empted) Commodification of a serious social justice issue (as a general assumption towards pop-cultural productions)

Inspired world creativity, nonconformity, passion, authenticity

Flickering screen reads “parental advisory explicit lyrics”

World of fame universality, renown, celebrity

“Illuminati mess”, “Paparazzi”, “Givenchy dress”, “Roc necklaces”

Sampling Messy Mya “What happened at the New Wil’ins?”

Three-fold selfdeflation to move towards a particular underground culture

Too esoteric and thus exclusive, ignoring the opinion of the largest possible audience

↓ IDENTIFICATION

‘I am a star!’ Self-presentation as a universal singularity, partly expressed in terms of market worth, i.e. luxury, wealth)

Too far apart from the experiences of the victims, violation of the rule of proximity

↓ DISTINCTION Domestic world tradition, generation, “natural habits”

„daddy Alabama, momma Louisiana (…) Texas bama (…) my baby heir with baby hair and afros (…) my negro nose with Jackson Five nostrils”

‘I am one of you’

Compromise of the worlds of industry and market I: efficiency, productivity M: equal, universal competition for the satisfaction of individual desires

„I see it, I want it, I stunt (…) I work hard, I grind 'til I own it”;

‘I am not you…’

Civic world solidarity, generality, collective interest and struggle

“Earned all this money but they never take the country out me”; “I got hot sauce in my bag””

Self-representation as a particularity, a member of the Southern Black community ↓ IDENTIFICATION

Explanation of Beyoncé’s trajectory in meritocratic terms (trajectory accessible to everyone)

“Okay, ladies, now let's get in formation” “I just might be a black Bill Gates in the making”

Too provincial, paternalistic, authoritative

M: Too selfish (personal vs. collective enrichment) I: Too technocratic and undemocratic

‘…but I am with you’ ↓ SYNTHESIS OF IDENTIFICATION & DISTINCTION (Star down-to earth)

Limits: Fragility of compromises

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Media Als, Hilton. 2016. Beywatch. Beyoncé’s Reformation. New Yorker, May 30. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/30/beyonces-lemonade. Bartleet, Larry. 2016. 7 Ways Beyoncé Nailed The Opening Night of Her Formation Tour. NME, April 28. https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/ 7-ways-beyonc-nailed-the-opening-night-of-her-formation-tour-8867. Battan, Carrie. 2016. Beyoncé Sacks the Super Bowl Halftime Show. New Yorker, February 8. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/ beyonce-sacks-the-super-bowl-halftime-show. Bogost, Ian. 2017. Pepsi’s New Ad Is a Total Success. Atlantic, April 5. https:// www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/pepsi-ad-success/ 522021/. Caramanica, Jon, Wesley Morris, and Jenna Wortham. 2016. Beyoncé in ‘Formation’: Entertainer, Activist, Both? New York Times, February 6. https:// www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/arts/music/beyonce-formation-super-bowlvideo.html. Ellen, Barbara. 2016. Beyoncé: The Superstar Who Brought Black Power to the Super Bowl. Guardian, February 14. https://www.theguardian.com/music/ 2016/feb/14/beyonce-profile-black-power-super-bowl-civil-rights

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Fallon, Kevin. 2016. Beyonce’s ‘Formation’: A Fiery Black Power Anthem and Call to Arms. Daily Beast, February 6. https://www.thedailybeast.com/ beyonces-formation-a-fiery-black-power-anthem-and-call-to-arms. Friedman, Nathaniel. 2017. A Pepsi Commercial’s Lesson for Advertisers. New York Times, April 6. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/opinion/a-pepsicommercials-lesson-for-advertisers.html. Guo, Jeff. 2016. The Strange Contradiction in Beyonce’s New Song ‘Formation’. Independent, February 10. https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/beyonce-formation-video-song-super-bowl-a6864551.html. Holpuch, Amanda. 2016. Rudy Giuliani: I’ve Saved More Black Lives Than Beyoncé. Guardian, August 20. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ 2016/aug/30/rudy-giuliani-beyonce-black-lives-vmas. hooks, bell. 2016. Moving Beyond Pain. bell hooks Institute, May 9. http://www. bellhooksinstitute.com/blog/2016/5/9/moving-beyond-pain. Kornhaber, Spencer. 2016. Beyoncé’s Radical Halftime Statement. Guardian, February 8. https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/02/ halftime-coldplay-beyonce-bruno-mars-formation/460404/. Lahren, Tomi. 2016. Beyonce and the Black Panthers. The Blaze, February 11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2O5MGpfKTc. Moore, Suzanne. 2016. Black Pride at the Super Bowl? Beyoncé Embodies a New Political Moment. Guardian, February 8. https://www.theguardian. com/commentisfree/2016/feb/08/black-pride-beyonce-super-bowl-50. Mya, Messy. 2010. Booking The Hoes From New Wildin. YouTube. August 20. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daKqgdcypTE.

Links Beyoncé. Formation. Accessed 8 Feb 2016. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=WDZJPJV__bQ. Genius. Formation. Beyoncé. Accessed 3 Mar 2016. https://genius.com/ Beyonce-formation-lyrics. NFL. Beyoncé & Bruno Mars Crash the Pepsi Super Bowl 50 Halftime Show | NFL. Accessed 8 Feb 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDPITj1 wlkg&t=3s. RIAA. PAL Standards. Accessed 13 Oct 2017. https://www.riaa.com/resourceslearning/pal-standards/.

Part II Artistic Career Paths: Trajectories and Inequalities in the Market

4 Art Workers, Inequality, and the Labour Market: Values, Norms, and Alienation Across Three Generations of Artists Orian Brook, Dave O’Brien, and Mark Taylor

Introduction How does the art market interact with broader social structures? Contemporary sociology of the art market has done much to highlight the importance of social inequalities, particularly those associated with wealth, into understandings of the (global) system of contemporary art production. This sits alongside the rise of economic sociology stressing the importance of economic practice to a world seemingly dominated by aesthetics and the denial of languages or modes of valuation found in market prices. Finally, the study of art as a subsection of the ‘creative economy’ has begun to focus on the working practices of individual

O. Brook • D. O’Brien (*) University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] M. Taylor University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Glauser et al. (eds.), The Sociology of Arts and Markets, Sociology of the Arts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39013-6_4

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creatives and their orientation and relationship to the findings of both economic sociology and the sociology of inequality. This chapter is located at the intersection of these three areas of research. The chapter highlights the narratives of three creative workers, all self-identifying as artists. The three narratives serve to illustrate three issues. First, the complexity of the artists’ orientation towards the system of contemporary art production. Second, the role of broader social inequalities, particularly those associated with gender and social class, in explaining the artists’ careers and their artistic practice. Third, how these case studies relate to the broader literature on inequality in the cultural and creative industries. Individuals’ narratives, framed through the lens of social inequalities, market structures, and their own artistic practices, are important for several reasons. The chapter begins by sketching some of the existing literature in the area, much of which is the subject of both the introduction to the book and the discussions in several of the other chapters. As a result, the literature is narrated as a means to establish the importance of the research project from which the qualitative data is drawn. The chapter then moves to discuss the Panic! Whatever happened to social mobility in the arts project, and the associated research methods, before introducing the case studies of the three artists. The three are shown to have varying orientations to the art world and art market; to have shared struggles associated with class and gender and a shared distance from the art world’s ‘somatic norm’; and to have adapted their practice in different ways. The chapter concludes by thinking through what the ‘new inequalities paradigm’ (O’Brien et al. 2017) might mean for the study of art and culture.

Understanding Artists and Inequality There is now an extensive sociological literature on both the art market and the creative occupations associated with it. In addition, there is a vast popular literature demonstrating that the questions associated with who makes art, what is aesthetically and financially valued, and the broader social position of art are of interest to public audiences (e.g. Thornton 2008; Thompson 2012; Perry 2016). The sociological literature has

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sought to account for a more social understanding of both the production of art (Becker 1982) and a more social understanding of taste (Bourdieu 1984). Work on the institutions of the art world, for example cultural policy regimes (Alexander et al. 2018), the art fair (Schultheis et al. 2015), art auctions (Pardo-Guerra 2011, 2013; Coslor 2010), and art dealers (Velthuis 2007), has followed in the wake of initial sociological studies on production and consumption. Most obviously of interest for this chapter is research on art workers, both artists and the broader set of creative occupations constituting cultural production more generally. Art workers have emerged as a category of interest as a result of more general transformations in the economies of the Global North (Chiapello 2004). They are debated as being the vanguard of the new economy, as a result of the creativity, autonomy, freedom, and entrepreneurialism ascribed to arts work in public policy (e.g. DCMS 2001, 2017), but also the personalised and individualised forms of responsibility, placing risk and precariousness as the concern of the worker, rather than of the state (McRobbie 2015; Ducret et  al. 2017). At the same time, the longer-­ standing social status of the artist, as a repository for critical perspectives or socially transformative interventions and innovations, has also accelerated research and policy interest (Chiapello 2004; Mateos-Garcia and Bakhshi 2016; Luxford 2010). As a subcategory of cultural and creative occupations, artists, and artistic labour, are now well researched from a variety of disciplines, including sociology (e.g. Gerber 2017), economics (e.g. Abbing 2014), geography (Markusen 2006), cultural studies (Forkert 2013), and art history (e.g. Dimitrakaki and Lloyd 2017). The most recent intervention has come from Gerber’s study of artists working in the USA, which attempted to understand the artist as an occupation with unclear boundaries. These unclear boundaries are subject to state judgements, for example, over taxation status, as well as artists’ own individual narratives associated with their relational status to other occupations, their credentials, their understanding of art as a passionate vocation, and their need to be paid for work (Gerber 2017). All of these different disciplinary perspectives point to a fundamentally unbalanced labour market for artists: a labour market characterised by potentially ‘big winners’ able to plug into global circuits of capital and

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thus fame, wealth, and canonisation by galleries and art historians, and a longer tail of those struggling with low wages and deeply insecure working conditions (O’Brien et al. 2016). Who gets to ‘win’ in these markets is subject to specific social dynamics associated with long-standing demographic categories of class, ethnicity, and gender, alongside emerging research focuses in areas such as disability (e.g. Kuppers 2014) and sexuality. The intersections of these categories are, of course, crucial in accounting for an art world, and a broader cultural production system, dominated by white, middle-class origin, able-bodied men. It is clear from the existing field that inequalities, associated with who produces and who consumes, are important to the sociology of art and artists. The rest of this chapter is situated in this context. We draw on three detailed case study narratives of artists working in England, in order to better understand the lived reality of contemporary artists’ work. Moreover, in doing so we draw attention to the structural inequalities of the labour market for artists in Britain, showing how geography, class and gender intersect to exclude our three artists from specific parts of the art world, whilst at the same time shaping their practice and only partially valuing and validating them as artists.

A Note on Methods and Data The data discussed in this chapter are drawn from a larger project looking at inequality in the arts and cultural ‘world’ of the UK. This was initially a public engagement research project, with a media partner and an arts organisation keen to understand inequality issues within the arts in the UK. As part of this, in 2015, The Guardian, a UK newspaper, hosted a web survey for cultural workers that attracted almost 2500 individual responses. The research team then conducted follow-up interviews with 237 respondents working across a variety of cultural and creative occupations, including visual arts, theatre, film and television, music, and design. Interviews were conducted using a combination of in-person, Skype, and telephone, and were audio recorded. They lasted around an hour, with the aim of understanding the career biographies of participants; their own reflections on the structures of their cultural or creative

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occupation; their perceptions of inequalities associated with class, ethnicity, and gender; and their tastes and cultural interests. As a result, the data set provides a rich and highly detailed picture of contemporary cultural work in the UK. Moreover, for present purposes, it allows for comparisons between different career stages within the same cultural occupation.

Janet, Carla, and Lisa: Artists’ Working Lives My interest in the Art Market is limited. I think not from any particular class conscious way but I think in a way the Art Market does wonderful things. But it doesn’t deal with every form of creativity. (Carla)

We now turn to the empirical section of the chapter. Here we introduce data from three of the Panic! Interviewees, who we have called Janet, Carla and Lisa. All three are white women. Janet was in her 60s at the time of the interview, and had done a range of jobs within the art world before working as a temporary lecturer in art at a university in a rural English town. She has a PhD in fine art. Carla, who also has a PhD in fine art, was in her 40s at the time of the interview and was a practising artist. Her work had been part of the contemporary global art world, but at the time of interview she was focusing on place-based and community engagement forms of art, nearer to her home in the Midlands of England. She no longer lived or worked in London. Her art practice provided income from grants, and she had some teaching at a local university’s art school, although she was more precariously employed than Janet. Finally, Lisa was in her 20s at the time of the interview. She had recently graduated with a BA in Fine Art from one of London’s middle-ranked art schools and was working as a teaching assistant whilst doing unpaid internships in the arts. All three self-describe as artists. As we will see, this self-description is an important subject in the context of recent research on the boundaries of artistic professions (Gerber 2017) and the chapter’s interest in how all three artists relate to the idea of a ‘somatic norm’ (Puwar 2004; Friedman and O’Brien 2017) in cultural and creative labour markets.

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Class(ifying) Artists Although we have noted the gender and ethnicity of our case study artists, our first moment of analysis is to draw attention to the complexity of their class status. This complexity is the result of the tension between three modes of doing class: classification by parental occupation into a class of origin (Crompton 2008); the artists’ self-descriptions using repertoires of class and classed experiences (Lawler 2013); and the artists’ occupational destinations. The latter point creates a bridge to the following section, highlighting the uncertain boundaries associated with the occupation ‘artist’. In the British context, class, particularly the forms of identity associated with class, is important to understanding individuals’ narratives of themselves (Crompton 2008; Skeggs 2015; Savage 2000, 2010, 2015; Bottero 2004). It would be impossible to write any meaningful discussion of our participants without some understanding of their class position. This is, of course, notwithstanding academic theories as to the changing salience of class (cf. Savage 2015). For Savage (2015) discussions of class are most important to how the British middle class understand themselves, with a curiosity about position vis-à-vis others and a reflexive desire to position oneself as an ‘ordinary’ person (Savage 2000). Indeed, given the classification of artists in the professional middle class within the British National Statistics Socio-Economic Classification (NS-SEC), it is unsurprising that class needs attention in our discussion. Janet, Carla, and Lisa all have complex class and status backgrounds, and we have chosen them deliberately because of this. Janet’s parents were both labourers, giving her a ‘traditional working class’ background. Carla came from a single-parent family, and her mother was an academic, but her class narrative is conscious of the intersection of gender and occupation in her early life. Finally Lisa, the youngest artist, was from a ‘creative’ household. Her father was a working musician and her mother worked in the fashion industry prior to the domestic labour of bringing up Lisa. Lisa’s parents’ status as ‘creatives’ marked a difference with what she described as the rest of her ‘working class’ family:

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I think I grew up with a lot of middle-class values but on very, quite, working class budget and, apart from my parents, a working class family. Everyone in my family is very working class, it’s just my parents I suppose which are different in both their families. (Lisa)

Here she drew on the language of values to differentiate her parents, and thus her experience, from the rest of her family. Later in the interview, expanding on the comment about a working-class budget, she attributed financial hardship to her parents’ (particularly her father’s) career, meaning she drew distinctions between herself and the ‘middle class’ art world. Occupational criteria were thereby not central to Lisa’s claims to working-classness. Rather, financial constraints sat in tension with class-based values in her narrative of a classed upbringing. Janet’s discussion of class offered a similar set of ‘values’-based narratives, alongside a more formal occupational understanding of her class origin. Both of her parents were labourers in the rural part of England where she grew up. She too drew on cultural and embodied understandings of class, describing herself as ‘socially working class’ because: I don’t have those, it’s the social mannerisms, the ease of mixing and speaking in those sorts of circumstances. It’s a very subtle thing, it’s very hard to define and I think it’s one reason why I talk about work. Probably since I went into doing art rather than the political activist stuff or teaching I’ve not made any friends which are not based around work and where the conversations are largely about practice, about ideas and things. I have a lot of people who I think of as being close because I work with a lot and everything, but sometimes I sit back and I think actually these people know absolutely nothing about me. They know what I think, they know what I do, but they don’t know any of those other stuff….When I meet up with people who’ve known me through my 20s it’s a very different feel and a very different relationship. So sometimes I’m just very conscious that’s a real split. (Janet)

This sense of dislocation or unease is in keeping with research on the narratives and biographies of the socially mobile in the UK (Friedman 2014). There is an added element of interest in the context of cultural workers, specifically artists. In Janet’s narrative the discussion of work, of her practice, was a mode of avoiding some of the dislocations and

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distances between her middle-class artistic and university milieu, and her social origins. This gestures to a particular place given to arts and cultural practice in her sense of a classed self. This importance will be considered in more detail towards the closing section of the analysis, as the place for the vocation of the artist, along with the transformative power of the arts in society, was crucial to all three participants’ ways of negotiating the barriers and exclusions they faced as art workers. For now, Janet’s comments on her practice in relation to her class destination provide a comparative point to Carla’s understanding of class. Carla was from, in occupational terms, a more privileged social starting point, as her mother was employed in higher education and eventually became an academic researcher. However, her mother’s occupation belied the complexity of growing up in a single-parent family and moving around the country. For Carla, class was a subject to be avoided, not in terms of a claim to ordinariness (Savage 2000), but rather the perception of a lack of connection between the cultural and the material reality of her childhood. Two comments illustrate this: brought up with somebody who, essentially, was in the realms of Poetry, Art— all of that incredible ’60s avant-garde. Who then, sort of, moved in to something that was, I suppose, very, very, very different. I think when we first moved to [a northern city] we ended up moving into a small terrace. I think because we had come up from the South, probably sounded tremendously posh but I remember the kids coming over from next-door, just being absolutely gobsmacked that there was no television and no sofa and just these beanbags and radios. I think they just didn’t know what the heck was going on. (Carla) My mother went to a very beautiful university, I then went to school on a council estate, so putting things together in terms of class with that, it is very tricky. So, quite often, I just absolutely avoid it. It is almost like you are uncomfortable in whatever bracket it is. Because you don’t exactly fit in with those models. (Carla)

As we can see, all three artists illustrate the complexity of class within their individual identities. Moreover, by gesturing towards class as a mode of exclusions, we see links to both broader questions of inequality and to

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the issue of who is included by virtue of their class. Our discussion of the somatic norm for artists, which closes this chapter, will return to this point.

Inequality and the Struggle to Be an Artist Carla’s sense of not fitting models of class opens up a more general discussion of the experiences of our three participants as they have attempted to build sustainable artistic careers. Moreover, it is through their experience of inequality that we can understand their practice, most notably in relation to the structures of a predominantly white, male, and middleclass ­origin art world focused, in the UK, on London. We use London as a route to open up discussions of structural inequalities of pay; barriers based on the intersection of class and gender; and the more general question of who is, and who is not, afforded the status of an artist.

The Cultural Capital Just as class has a specificity in the British context, the role of London is important in understanding our three case study narratives. London is narrated by Cunningham and Savage (2015, 321) as an ‘elite metropolitan vortex’, in which the cultural, economic and social resources of those within elite professions self-perpetuate the existing social closure. This pattern of elite closure is set in the context of a highly unequal city, particularly with regard to access to housing (Atkinson et al. 2017). London is an important site for creative activity in general in the UK, with the dominant proportion of creative businesses based in and around the capital (Bernick et al. 2017; Mateos-Garcia and Bakhshi 2016). It is also the beneficiary of a huge imbalance in state support for the arts, where it is the dominant recipient of English arts funding (Stark et al. 2013). Moreover, analysis of the labour market for creative workers indicates London accelerates class disadvantages (Oakley et  al. 2017), both in terms of the socio-economic origins of creative workers, and in terms of

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their rates of pay. Whilst creative workers as a whole see higher (and in some cases the highest) rates of pay available in London, the access to potential work networks, markets and thus riches and security is, at best, unevenly distributed. London’s role in creative labour markets, particularly its role in perpetuating inequalities, makes for an ambivalent relationship with popular narratives of making it by going to London (Oakley et al. 2017). Tied to the role of London in the national imagination, as the big smoke of literary, musical, and visual production, is the importance of London as a hub within the circuits of the global art market (Robertson 2015) and for artistic production. Although specific scenes (Crossley 2015) and moments of importance (or fashion) to the global art world are mobile, and the dominance of London and New York as centres for the market exchange of art has been challenged, particularly by Hong Kong (Harris 2017; Robertson 2015), London remains a place and space that is crucial to artistic production and consumption. London was also important to our three case study artists, both shaping their careers and practices, as well as interacting with the social inequalities which we have sketched earlier. To return to the analysis of Oakley et al. (2017) on creative workers, and Cunningham and Savage (2015) on the role of London in reinforcing inequality more generally in British society, we can see how London has acted to exclude our three artists from both the labour market and the forms of aesthetic legitimacy afforded by participation in the capital’s art world. For Janet and Carla there was exasperation at London’s dominance, whether in terms of London’s role in de-legitimising places in which they worked, or in terms of London’s role in maintaining and perpetuating inequality, to the detriment of artistic innovation: [a branch of a national arts organisation] had that week announced that it was changing its name…That had been announced in the local press but they had decided that they would have the big renaming party and launch at the architects’ offices in London. So everybody in [Janet’s town] was really pissed off that it was the sort of thing, well we’re obviously not good enough to have this. They have to go to London for it. (Janet)

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The interesting situation I think now is that is something that is very much been joined by many artists that were living in London that now can’t afford to live there…So there is this interesting potential, cultural death of the capital— which is something that was inconceivable when I was in my 20s. (Carla)

In Lisa’s case, we can see the ‘results’ of London’s inequalities, inequalities which underpinned the career-biographical narratives of Janet and Carla, happening to the contemporary artist. Two quotes from her interview, on the lack of freedom, the competition, and the lack of space illustrate the problem of London for her: In real terms you have very very little freedom, particularly living in London because there’s such a high level of competition for anything that actually I feel like it’s a very restricting thing to be trying to do in this city at this time. (Lisa) I definitely went through a period of being really fixated on the idea of having a studio and really fixated on the idea that I was getting really angry about the fact that I couldn’t have a studio because we didn’t have enough money. People that I knew who were the same age as me whose parents were subsidising them or who were living at home were progressing faster than me because they were able to have a studio and it wasn’t—Yes but yes so at that point I was really, I did get quite frustrated but then I just sort of realised that… I guess I just kind of realised that it was going to be harder for me and it was always going to be harder for me so there’s not really any point being upset about that. I’m just going to have to work harder than other people and that’s kind of fine. (Lisa)

Pay and the Art Market Lisa’s narrative of ‘working harder’ is in keeping with much of the literature on younger people’s individualisation of inequality (Franceschelli and Keating 2018). However, this is an issue that runs across cultural labour markets more generally, with the disparity between big ‘winners’ and a longer tail of comparatively low-paid workers (McRobbie 2015; O’Brien et  al. 2016). All three of our artists had experience of low or no pay:

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I have a studio and I do exhibitions relatively frequently and I have done a residency and have worked for a couple of galleries but it’s always been unpaid. I guess I would say that I’m still relatively engaged and as much as a practising artist as it’s probably possible to be at my age in my current situation. (Lisa) You’re contracted to work a number of days but the dates you work or the days you are paid for in no way cover the amount of work that is required. (Janet)

This problem of pay was given clarity by Carla’s narrative of her own career development, where she noted the decade-long process of getting projects that are paid, and support via grant funding: I think really over the past 10 years I have had this steady increment in terms of the projects that I do. The majority of them are now paid… project that pays for, you know, all of the work that you undertake with it. I have also been doing a fellowship… but these are situations that when I finished my MA 16 years ago weren’t common. (Carla)

This experience of precariousness with regard to pay is grounded, for our three case study artists, in the nature of their work. Being an artist was a vocation, a passionate calling to which they had committed their lives (Sandoval 2018). Current work on the idea of passion or vocational commitment within cultural work has attempted to critique the broader social demand that individuals do what they love whilst foregrounding new modes of organisation that can better enable proper remuneration and decent working conditions (Sandoval 2018), along with a defence of the positive elements of artistic labour, focused on autonomy and self-­ expression (Hesmondhalgh and Baker 2011). In this context, it is easy to understand the vocational commitments to artistic endeavour, most strikingly enunciated by Lisa: I guess it’s not even really about enjoyment or seeking employment or wanting to make money, it just really feels like a natural exorcism of things that if I didn’t do I would just feel like I was going insane. For me it just feels like a really really healthy thing to be doing and like something that if I… I just don’t really know what I would do if I didn’t do it. (Lisa)

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However, whilst Janet and Carla shared the commitment to being artists as a form of vocation and an element of their identity, they pointed more directly to how structural inequalities limited this passionate commitment to doing what they love. In Carla’s case, she was responding to the constraints of funders and the market for her form of community-­ based artistic practice, whilst staying committed to the work she felt had value and the identity of the artist: I think very much what happened with Art in the 2000s has gone. So that idea of fame and money are, you know, that has vanished. I think it still exists but in a very different way. I think what is really interesting now is that potential to manifest ideas in a way that starts stretching what you can do with culture. Again, that is a focus but also sustainability. So, I think, very much that idea that, you know, if somebody continues to practice then they have succeeded. I think that is the really important thing—whatever that practice is, whatever it contains. If it is something that stretches their imagination and eventually gives value either for them or others, then I feel that is a really important thing. (Carla)

Janet shared this vision of the artist facing questions of how to make work that she wanted, rather than work that might be less interesting, less risky but that fit funding and market constraints: galleries and curators are not prepared to take risks with people they don’t know, unless the work has been written about and validated by an institution they can recognise. Whereas artists don’t care. Artists are prepared to show alongside or to just show work of people who they think are interesting. I know there’s less at stake because they don’t have to please an institution, as it were, but I think there is something that is sorely missing. Those sorts of projects are very, very rarely funded in terms of paying artists’ time. (Janet)

Here Janet juxtaposes artists against funders and galleries, against a system that, as the following section demonstrates, significantly excludes specific social groups who fail to fit a ‘norm’ to which the art world, in the perception of our three case study artists, is attached. In turn, these exclusions exploit the vocational, passionate commitments of those facing funding systems and markets that fail to adequately cover costs and pay. This is a vicious circle that partially accounts for the socially exclusive

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nature of artistic and cultural production that was the starting point for this chapter.

Who Can Be an Artist? Recent work on the creative workforce in the UK has suggested systematic exclusions for women, ethnic minorities, and those from working-­ class social origins (O’Brien et al. 2016; Oakley et al. 2017). Moreover, these exclusions shape a powerful sense of what a creative worker, whether artist, actor, writer, director, or musician, is. This ‘somatic norm’ (Friedman and O’Brien 2017) in creative occupations is manifested in the figure of the able-bodied, white, middle-class-origin man, a norm also dominant across other elite occupations in Britain (Puwar 2004). Puwar’s (2004) notion was drawn from work in British government institutions, where she identified the absence of staff who were not white, male, and upper-middle-class. The dominance of the white male, middle-­ class body was intertwined with the ideal type of government civil servant, a ‘somatic norm’ serving to exclude those who did not fit this norm. Despite governmental institutions aiming to be credentialised and meritocratic, the dominance of the norm of the white male, and middle-class body was an important element in explaining the exclusion of those individuals with characteristics ‘other’ than this one. Subsequently, the ‘somatic norm’ has been adapted to help explain inequalities in cultural occupations, where we see, in the UK at least, similar patterns of exclusion for those who do not fit the norm of white, male, middle-classness (O’Brien et al. 2016). As Friedman and O’Brien (2017, 368) note, the somatic norm in cultural occupations such as acting ‘not only functions by designating the primacy of the white, male, middle-class “type”, but also by clearly constructing other types as somatic “others”’. Those others then face much greater challenges to making it as actors, musicians, writers, or artists, as compared with those fitting the somatic norm. This is the case even where narratives of talent or artistic genius are supposed to explain success. The figure of the somatic norm of the artist, as white, male, and middle class, was clear in Janet’s and Carla’s explicit recognition of the role of

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class in the art world, how it excluded particular bodies and affects, whilst including, valuing, and actively promoting others: There is very much a thing that it is a culture that suits people that are confident. I think if you almost look at demographics and confidence within society, then you very much hit those brackets that get termed as privileged. So, you can look at the Arts and you can see a very white, middle-class area of enterprise. (Carla) I think the trouble with the arts industry is that it’s so based on networking and the sort of social skills, how you behave at openings. I’m not as confident as I probably ought to be. I have a colleague who is a freelance artist. He’s from a middle-class background and he’s a bloke. I was just left stunned by his ability to just introduce himself and start talking to people and networking in the middle of this seminar. I just don’t do that. I just find it really, really hard. (Janet)

Janet’s sense of struggling to be as confident as a male, middle-class artist was echoed in Carla’s sense of alienation, of not fitting in or knowing the ‘rules of the game’ as an artist: I had a period of time in which I was represented by a Gallery. I always found that you were almost meeting a class of people that you just hadn’t got the foggiest idea how on earth you interact with them, which is quite amazing. Because, you know, there is this kind of level of middle-classness or upper-middle-­classness that you get. We were visiting some people who were buying work from another Artist and, evidently, the whole idea was to take a very, very good bottle of wine. This was something where I was then accused of almost turning up with a Party 7 bucket [canned beer] and they were like, ‘What the heck is this?’ (Carla)

In both artists’ comments we can see the intersection of class and gender working to position Carla and Janet outside the norms of the art world. The idea of confidence, of being talkative and self-assured in social situations, along with knowing the unwritten rules of what sort of behaviour and embodiment is expected in the formal settings where crucial elements of the artistic labour market occur, such as networking, were explicit in both women’s sense of not fitting in. They both identified their male, middle-class colleagues as much more capable of success in these

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networking settings because of their embodied characteristics. It is no coincidence, as we noted at the beginning of the empirical sections of this chapter, that both are estranged from the London art scene and are based in regional locations in England; in Carla’s case, she is explicitly engaged in community and participatory art practice. Gender was also crucial to Lisa’s perception of the inequalities she faced as an early-career artist struggling in London. The difference was in the more individualised nature of Lisa’s perception of inequality. As we noted in the section on London, Lisa pointed to the need for her to work harder than her peers with parental affluence or London-based housing. What is striking about her narrative of who gets to be an artist, who is successful at claiming the title of artist by being able to practice, was the continuation of the individualised frame. When asked directly about inequalities associated with her occupation, she played down the role of class structures, looking to ‘other stuff’ such as forming working relationships: Maybe there are issues with class and all those other kind of things within as an undercurrent but in terms of what you talk about and how you form relationships with people it’s kind of based on other stuff. It’s never really been that much of a problem for me. (Lisa)

However, the limit to individualisation was seen in her discussion of the role of gender. Again, in keeping with theorisations and empirical work on gender and creative labour, the need for individual choice and hard work was matched by a clearer picture of gender inequality and the dominance of a particular type of masculinity as ‘the artist’: I think it’s because there is less support to women or for women working as independent practitioners…. Because historically the precedent is for men to have a heroic career in the arts and for women not to… I think the problem lies in the fact that subconsciously since day one women have had it ingrained within them that they are going to play a secondary role to men. I think that is where gender issues come into play within the arts particularly because there is a historical narrative of men being superior. (Lisa)

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Lisa’s recognition of inequalities foregrounded gender, rather than class, as the key category in the somatic norm of the (successful) artist. This serves to highlight the importance of the intersections of privileged characteristics, such as class, ethnicity, and gender, in success. This intersection remains even where the emphasis shifts from gender to class. This can be demonstrated by looking at a reading of the mythology of the artist laid out by Carla. It is striking how close her language is to Lisa’s, but how one factor differentiates the two, which is the role of class. I think Fine Art and, you know, has always enjoyed that mythology of the working class male. You can look at several examples of working class men that have entered into Fine Art Institutions and they have thrived….But I think for working class women it is a very different conversation…I think still there are those situations where I have sat in talks and almost watched the differences that happen with language….So I think we still live at a point where, you know, your accent, your background, the way that you behave will inform things. It totally will, yes. (Carla)

This section has aimed to establish the somatic norm of the artist, a norm which plays an important role in exclusions from success and overall inequalities in the art world. However, by focusing on class as its final point, the section also returns to the opening sections of the chapter’s empirical discussion that aimed to establish both the importance of class for understanding British data, and also the complexity of this category in how the artists narrate themselves. This dual role for class points to an important potential area for future empirical and theoretical work.

Conclusion The overarching somatic norm of the art world, as experienced by Carla and Janet, points to a wider truth about working as an artist. As Gerber (2017) notes, there are many different ways to narrate oneself as an artist, with various differing orientations to the vocation. However, the barriers and challenges, of the practicalities of pay, aesthetic value and valorisation, and the assumptions of who is, and who is not, considered to be an

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artist, have a universal quality. The barriers and challenges are, of course, not experienced equally, nor do individuals confront them with the same level of resources, or capital, to overcome them and ‘make it’. Our purpose with our three case study artists has been to highlight the uneven distribution of opportunity in the art world, along with, à la McRobbie (2015), raising serious questions as to the desirability of seeing the artist as a blueprint for the new economy. In keeping with the existing work on the stratification of British economy and society (e.g. Goldthorpe 2016), the new economy, if our case study artists are a guide, will look much like the old, with important exclusions. Moreover, as Lisa’s narrative indicates, it will involve the further focus on the individual as responsible for the precariousness and risks of an uncertain labour market, with little or no place for labour market reform, government or collective action, or the operation of unfair and unequal social and power structures. There are important notes of caution in our discussion. All three of our artists are able-bodied and white, leaving the question of barriers associated with disability, and race and ethnicity, as moot questions in their narratives. They are all based in England, which, as our focus on class and London shows, has specific and particular dynamics. There is also the caveat of the three as representative of wider trends. Moreover, the temporal dimension is one demanding further research. As we have noted elsewhere (Brook et al. 2018a, b), whilst the class composition of the arts in the UK has been skewed towards those from professional and managerial origins, this skew has continued against the backdrop of considerable changes in the social structure (Goldthorpe 2016). In Janet’s case, her entry into the art world occurred in the mid-1970s, and much of her formative professional experience occurred in the 1980s. This setting was before the art school had been absorbed into the formal higher education system of the UK, during a period of comparative low levels of entry by the general population into higher education, and was marked by a significantly different social support system to the current setting (Banks and Oakley 2016). For Carla, during the 1990s and early 2000s, there was an expanded higher education system, along with an expanded arts funding regime, a regime that was especially attentive to the kind of practice (O’Brien 2014) that she developed following her experiences of the international art market. Finally, Lisa’s struggles with the art world are set

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against a significantly more punitive social support system, a major housing crisis in London, as well as an art world where unpaid labour is endemic for the early years of a career. These three historical settings present an important set of questions for future analysis and research on the classed and gendered experiences of the art worker. However, as with our research using regionally representative survey data in Britain (O’Brien et al. 2016; Oakley et al. 2017), along with comparisons with other creative professions such as acting (Friedman et al. 2016; Friedman and O’Brien 2017), the issues raised by Carla’s, Janet’s, and Lisa’s stories are part of a grander narrative of inequality and exclusion, particularly associated with a ‘somatic norm’ of who is valued as an artist. Their narratives should, therefore, represent a demand for change, as much as a sociological contribution.

References Abbing, Hans. 2014. Why Are Artists Poor? Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam Press. Alexander, Victoria, Samuli Hägg, Simo Häyrynen, and Erkki Sevänen, eds. 2018. Art and the Challenge of Markets Volume 1: National Cultural Politics and the Challenges of Marketization and Globalization. London: Palgrave. Atkinson, Roland, Simon Parker, and Roger Burrows. 2017. Elite Formation, Power and Space in Contemporary London. Theory, Culture & Society 34 (5–6): 179–200. Banks, Mark, and Kate Oakley. 2016. The Dance Goes on Forever? Art Schools, Class and UK Higher Education. International Journal of Cultural Policy 22 (1): 41–57. Becker, Howard. 1982. Art Worlds. Oakland: University of California Press. Bernick, Sandra, Richard Davies, and Anna Valero. 2017. Industry in Britain – An Atlas CfEP Special Paper 34. http://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/special/ cepsp34.pdf. Accessed 16 May 2018. Bottero, Wendy. 2004. Class Identities and the Identity of Class. Sociology 38 (5): 985–1003. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction. London: Routledge.

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Brook, O., D. O’Brien, and M. Taylor. 2018a. Panic! Social Class, Taste, and Inequality in the Creative Industries. http://createlondon.org/event/panicpaper/. Accessed 27 Nov 2018. ———. 2018b. There Was No Golden Age: Social Mobility into Cultural and Creative Occupations. Working Paper. https://osf.io/preprints/ socarxiv/7njy3/. Chiapello, Eve. 2004. Evolution and Co-optation. The ‘Artist Critique’ of Management and Capitalism. Third Text 18 (6): 585–594. Coslor, Erica. 2010. Hostile Worlds and Questionable Speculation: Recognizing the Plurality of Views About Art and the Market. In Economic Action in Theory and Practice: Anthropological Investigations, ed. Donald Wood, 209–224. Research in Economic Anthropology, Volume 30. London: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Crompton, Rosemary. 2008. Class and Stratification. Cambridge: Polity. Crossley, Nick. 2015. Networks of Sound, Style and Subversion. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Cunningham, Niall, and Mike Savage. 2015. The Secret Garden? Elite Metropolitan Geographies in the Contemporary UK. Sociological Review 63 (2): 321–348. DCMS. 2001. Creative Industries Mapping Document. London: DCMS. ———. 2017. Economic Estimates of DCMS Sectors  – Methodology. London: DCMS. Dimitrakaki, Angela, and Kirsten Lloyd. 2017. Social Reproduction Struggles and Art History. Third Text 31 (1): 1–14. Ducret, Andre, Andrea Glauser, Olivier Moeschler, and Valerie Rolle. 2017. Introduction: Artistic Work as a “Laboratory” of Labour Market Deregulation? Swiss Journal of Sociology 43 (2): 239–251. Forkert, Kirsten. 2013. Artistic Lives: A Study of Creativity in Two European Cities. London: Routledge. Franceschelli, Michela, and Avril Keating. 2018. Imagining the Future in the Neoliberal Era: Young People’s Optimism and Their Faith in Hard Work. Young 26 (4S): 1–17. Friedman, Sam. 2014. The Price of the Ticket: Rethinking the Experience of Social Mobility. Sociology 48 (2): 352–368. Friedman, Sam, and Dave O’Brien. 2017. Resistance and Resignation: Responses to Typecasting in British Acting. Cultural Sociology 11 (3): 359–376. Friedman, Sam, Dave O’Brien, and Daniel Laurison. 2016. Like Skydiving Without a Parachute. Sociology 51 (5): 992–1010.

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Gerber, Alison. 2017. The Work of Art: Value in Creative Careers. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Goldthorpe, John. 2016. Social Class Mobility in Modern Britain: Changing Structure, Constant Process. Journal of the British Academy 4: 89–111. Harris, Jonathan. 2017. The Global Contemporary Art World: A Rough Guide. London: Blackwell. Hesmondhalgh, Dave, and Sarah Baker. 2011. Creative Labour. New  York: Routledge. Kuppers, Petra. 2014. Studying Disability, Arts and Culture. London: Palgrave. Lawler, Steph. 2013. Identity. Cambridge: Polity. Luxford, Julian M. 2010. Art for Art’s Sake – Was It Ever Thus? A Historical Perspective. In Managing Creativity: Exploring the Paradox, ed. Nick Beech and Barbara Townley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Markusen, Anne. 2006. Urban Development and the Politics of a Creative Class: Evidence from the Study of Artists. Environment and Planning A 38 (10): 1921–1940. Mateos-Garcia, Juan, and Hasan Bakhshi. 2016. The Geography of Creativity in the UK Creative Clusters, Creative People and Creative Networks. London: NESTA. McRobbie, Angela. 2015. Be Creative. Cambridge: Polity Press. O’Brien, Dave. 2014. Cultural Policy. London: Routledge. O’Brien, Dave, Daniel Laurison, Sam Friedman, and Andrew Miles. 2016. Are the Creative Industries Meritocratic? Cultural Trends 25 (2): 116–131. O’Brien, Dave, Kim Allen, Sam Friedman, and Anamik Saha. 2017. Producing and Consuming Inequality: A Cultural Sociology of the Cultural Industries. Cultural Sociology 11 (3): 271–282. Oakley, Kate, Daniel Laurison, Dave O’Brien, and Sam Friedman. 2017. Cultural Capital: Arts Graduates, Spatial Inequality, and London’s Impact on Cultural Labour Markets. American Behavioural Scientist 61 (1): 1510–1531. Pardo-Guerra, Juan. 2011. How Much for the Michelangelo? Valuation, Commoditization and Finitism in the Secondary Art Market. Cultural Sociology 5 (2): 207–223. ———. 2013. Priceless Calculations: Reappraising the Sociotechnical Appendages of Art. European Societies 15 (2): 196–211. Perry, Grayson. 2016. Playing to the Gallery. London: Penguin. Puwar, Nirmal. 2004. Space Invaders. London: Bloomsbury. Robertson, Iain. 2015. Understanding Art Markets: Inside the World of Art and Business. London: Routledge.

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Sandoval, Marisol. 2018. From Passionate Labour to Compassionate Work: Cultural Co-ops, Do What You Love and Social Change. European Journal of Cultural Studies 21 (2): 113–129. Savage, Mike. 2000. Class Analysis and Social Transformations. London: Routledge. ———. 2010. Identities and Social Change in Britain Since 1940: The Politics of Method. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———. 2015. Social Class in the Twenty First Century. London: Penguin. Schultheis, Franz, Erwin Single, Stephan Egger, and Thomas Mazzurana. 2015. When Art Meets Money: Encounters at the Art Basel. Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König. Skeggs, Bev. 2015. Introduction to the Special Issue on GBCS and Elites: Stratification or Exploitation, Domination, Dispossession and Devaluation? The Sociological Review 63 (2): 205–222. Stark, Peter, Colin Gordon, and David Powell. 2013. Rebalancing Our Cultural Capital. https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/sites/artsprofessional.co.uk/files/ rebalancing_our_cultural_capital.pdf. Accessed 16 May 2018. Thompson, Don. 2012. The $12 Million Stuffed Shark. London: Arum Press. Thornton, Sarah. 2008. Seven Days in the Art World. London: Granta. Velthuis, Olav. 2007. Talking Prices. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

5 Visual Artists’ Professional Situations and Trajectories Between Institutions and the Market Pierre Bataille, Johannes M. Hedinger, and Olivier Moeschler

Introduction Following nineteenth-century romanticism, the modern figure of the artist has been associated with the idea of singularity, which highlights the vocation and achievements of the individual creator. Several authors have described the passage of different art forms—among them visual arts— into the “singularity regime” which, according to Nathalie Heinich

P. Bataille University Grenoble Alpes, Grenoble, France e-mail: [email protected] J. M. Hedinger Zurich University of the Arts, Zürich, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] O. Moeschler (*) University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Glauser et al. (eds.), The Sociology of Arts and Markets, Sociology of the Arts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39013-6_5

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(2005), characterises the modern artists’ condition. There has been a shift from an often collective, unsigned craft to a regime which puts forward the vocation as well as the individually created and signed art work, a passage from the Académie and its Salon to the art market and to the modern, solitary but not individualistic, gifted and genius-like but uninterested artist. However, while the ethereal imagery of the “artiste maudit” still persists, the model of the artist as an entrepreneur has emerged and stresses the strategic, rational and competitive dimension of artistic creation. As early as 1980, Lee Caplin proposed a portrait of the artist as an “entrepreneur” (Caplin 1980). Today, the “artist entrepreneur” figure is increasingly prevalent in the artistic field itself, including within art schools and cultural policy agencies, but also in the wider society, suggesting a very close relationship between artists and the market or commercial rationales (Boltanski and Chiapello 1999; Reckwitz 2012; Grau 2013; Dockx and Gielen 2015; Jacobs 2016; Henning et  al. 2019).1 An author like Katja Lindqvist explores the similarities and differences between artists and entrepreneurs, addressing issues such as their traditionally ascribed characteristics, norms and rule-breaking behaviours, and functions in the process of bringing original ideas into the realm of consumers and larger society (Lindqvist 2011). In the specific sector of visual (and notably contemporary) art, this model is strongly linked to the globalisation, expansion and reconfiguration of the art market as well as the hybridisation of artistic works and production processes themselves in a global context (Bydler 2004; Weibel and Buddensieg 2007; Belting and Buddensieg 2009, Belting et al. 2011, 2013). More recently, some authors pointed out the “interpenetration” between this recent entrepreneurial imagery and the artistic singularity regime. Entrepreneurship appears  Among many examples of an indigenous discourse showing the rise of explicit merchant strategies in the arts, some years ago, ten artists explained in an Internet publication “how they became art entrepreneurs” and how an artist can “use his or her creativity as a jumping-off point for creating a business” (Bram 2011). More recently, the Internet site “Small Business Trends” identified a “trend of the artist entrepreneur” and discussed the possibilities of “combining entrepreneurship with art” (Campbell 2017). An Internet site titled TheArtistEntrepreneur is fully dedicated to the theme: citing Andy Warhol saying that “Making money is art”, its mission is to “empower visual artists and art organisations to challenge their status quo” and to “build creatively and financially fulfilling businesses” (online: http://theartistentrepreneur.com/home#welcome-1). 1

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thus to be a continuation and an inversion of the romantic artist figure— although this “introduction of capitalist logics” happens for the moment more at the paradigmatic level than as a regime, since it mainly applies to the few very internationally successful artists (Borja and Sofio 2009, 23, 24). At the same time, sociological analyses have repeatedly shown the factors that affect artistic work and careers, of which the entrepreneurial ideal and constraint is nothing but a new component. From a sociological perspective, art is a professional activity (almost) like any other. While Eliot Freidson saw artistic professions, linked to “vocation”, as a “challenge” for sociological analyses and as being fundamentally different from classical professions (Freidson 1986) and even argued that they “cannot be professions” (Freidson 1994), authors like Howard Becker (1982) have described the “art worlds” as just another work sector, with their conventions and “cooperation chains”, highlighting the role of the reinforcement personnel necessary for the production, distribution and reception of artworks. The paradigm of the artist as a rational “worker” has then been promoted by Pierre-Michel Menger, who linked the changes in the perception and forms of artistic work to the “metamorphoses of capitalism” (Menger 2002). Asking “who has created the creators”, Pierre Bourdieu (1984) has traced back the socio-historical process leading to the “autonomisation” process of relatively autonomous “cultural production fields”, for example, in literature in the nineteenth-­ century France, structured by certain “rules of art” (Bourdieu 1996) and, also, a high degree of competition between artistic producers equipped with unequal capitals or resources. Visual arts, where the passage “from the painter to the artist” (Heinich 1993) has been well studied, like cinema, literature or many musical genres, is a field which is known for being closer to the market than the highly subsidised arts like theatre or classical music. Like all modern art fields, it is a very competitive sector. Authors have analysed the highly unequal possibilities offered to artists on the national or international art market depending on their profile and strategies, for example, according to nationality (Quemin 2014). It is also known for a long time that there are various and unequal gendered ways to professionalise in visual arts (as shown in her pioneer paper by Pasquier 1983). In Switzerland, there have

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been few sociological studies on visual artists (Glauser 2009) or on the historical evolution of the art market (Jaccard and Guex 2011; Imhof et al. 2015). Recently, Isabelle Moroni (2017) described in a qualitative study on mobility of visual artists of the canton of Valais how the spatial mobility demanded by the contemporary art market imposes a norm of flexibility, availability and adaptability. Moroni shows that this need of constant redefinition of the self thus occurs even in peripheral regions— but cannot equally be fulfilled according to the aesthetic posture claimed, the “cosmopolitan” capital acquired by the artists and, also, to gender. At the same time, it is in visual arts that the neoliberal model of the successful “artist entrepreneur” is maybe the more clearly observable, with artistic figures such as Jeff Koons or Damien Hirst (Borja and Sofio 2009). So, torn between autonomy and market logics, and confronted to persistent sociological determinisms, who are today’s visual artists? What is the self-understanding of contemporary artists, what are their living conditions? What are their professional and personal situations? Why did they become artists, and how do they work? How do they make a living from their artistic activities, and how are they involved into the art market? Finally, can we observe a link between the various professional situations of the visuals artists and their self-perceptions in relation to artistic autonomy and market logics? This contribution aims at grasping the challenges that today’s artists face, for the specific case of Swiss visual arts. We will analyse how the ways of being an “artist” are undergoing a significant evolution in the light of trends such as the globalisation and reconfiguration of the art market, the hybridisation of artistic works and production processes, the reduction of public funding and the emergence of new social expectations addressed to artists. We aim at approaching contemporary artists’ situation in an age where artistic living and working conditions seem at a crossroads, with market logic playing an increasingly important role. After the description of our general theoretical setting, sample and analytic strategy, the chapter presents several results exploring the tension between institutions and the market in visual artists’ professional situations and trajectories, notably by mobilising a gender perspective. The text ends with a conclusion which synthetises the main results and shows their relevance for further research on art and artists in the market.

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Inquiry and Respondents Sample The analysis draws on a survey titled “The New Artist”, led by the ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts) in 2016–2017. The data which constitutes the basis for this contribution results from a national inquiry addressed to artists in the field of visual arts (painting, sculpture, installations) between October 2016 and February 2017. The invitation to fill out the form was distributed in art associations, art schools and art institutes.2 With the online questionnaire, we gathered information on 15 socio-demographic and 25 thematic questions about the representation of artistic work and the artist public figure as well as on the respondents’ situation. Some of the latter aimed at describing the “objective” position or trajectory of the respondent,3 while others referred to their self-­perception and representations.4 On the whole, 457 valid responses of visual artists in the whole country were registered into the e-survey device.5 A comparison with existing statistical data on the Swiss visual artists’ population (estimated at more or less 4500 individuals) shows that around 10% of Swiss visual artists’ population have been interrogated.6 The comparison of our sample’s socio-demographic profile with the whole Swiss visual artist population’s profile and the Swiss workforce  The mail and flyer invitations were disseminated in or via the following venues: SIK Swiss Institute for Art Research, the Swiss visual artists’ association Visarte, SARN (Swiss Artistic Research Network), ZHdK and other schools of visual arts in Switzerland, as well as the magazines Kunstbulletin and Schweizer Kunstverein. 3  These were questions on the incomes generated out of the artistic activity, who finances his/her artwork and to what percentage, how he/she makes a living, how he/she networks in the art scene, work-life balance, the professional activity of his/her partner or how many close friends are artists. 4  The more subjective questions focused on the reasons why the respondent became an artist, which other profession he/she would have chosen, how he/she describes his/her profession in official documents, the attributes that apply most for him- or herself, the elements that characterise a successful artist in his/her opinion or the role or function of an artist in society today. These closed questions all proposed preformatted items (plus an “other”-option). 5  For more information on the project, its documentation, the questionnaire and the general descriptive results, see: http://thenewartist.net/en/. 6  The source for these comparisons is the Swiss Labor Force Survey (SLSP). For the Swiss visual artists, a separated data exploitation furnished by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) has been used on persons who work as visual artists in their primary and/or secondary professional activity, in analogy (as we’ll see) to our sample. 2

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profile (Table  5.1) allows us to evaluate its characteristics and its representativeness. Table 5.1 shows that women are overrepresented in the sample: six out of ten of the interviewees (60%) are female (see Table 5.1). In the overall Swiss working population, this percentage is clearly lower, and this is even more the case among the Swiss visual artists, where men are strongly overrepresented.7 This trend in our sample may result from the fact that in art schools, where the questionnaire has largely circulated, the population is more feminised, a fact that has been verified in many European

Table 5.1  Comparison of the socio-demographic profile of visual artists (respondents sample), Swiss visual artists, and Swiss working population Visual artists (respondents) Sex  Male  Female Age  15–24  25–39  40–54  55–64  65+  Average age Diploma  Tertiary  Other Nationality  Swiss  Other n

Swiss visual artists (SLSP)

Swiss working pop. (SLSP)

39.7 60.3

64.3 35.7

53.3 46.3

4.8 20.1 33.7 25.8 15.5 50.2

3.1 18.9 36.8 21.6 18.5 51.1

12.0 32.5 34.6 16.9 4.0 41.8

58.0 42.0

43.2 56.8

41.3 58.5

93.0 7.0 457

84.7 15.4 4500

74.2 25.8 4,675,000

Swiss working population (2018) and Swiss visual artists (pooling 2010–2018): Swiss Labour Force Survey (SLFS)

 For sex, age, and nationality of the Swiss working population, see FSO (2018): https://www.bfs. admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/travail-remuneration/enquetes/espa/publications-resultats. assetdetail.9366518.html. 7

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countries (Provansal 2018).8 Moreover, this feminisation reminds us that whereas the elite of art domains almost always is masculine (Buscatto 2007), notably in visual arts (Quemin 2013), it is not the case of the whole artistic population. The sex distribution according to the age categories confirms this impression: while 60–70% of the respondents are female from 19 to 59 years of age, from 60 years onwards, it drops to 45–50%. The older respondents, that is, the ones that have been able to “survive” professionally in this difficult environment, are thus more likely to be men. This over-representation of women in our sample can also be the consequence of the dissemination of our survey in the institutional pole of the art sector—which is, as we’ll see, more invested by women. Last but not least, it also known that women tend to be more responsive to inquiries. The structure of our interviewees’ sample according to age may be surprising at first glance. Half of the sample (49%) falls into the “middle” category of the 41–60 years old, and the largest 10-year age slice is 50–59 (29% of the sample; see Table 5.4 in Annex). The average age is 50.2 years: this is far more than the active population (41.8 years9), but corresponds almost exactly to the average age of Swiss visual artists (51.1 years). So in this case, our interviewees seem to be the reflection of an effective high age of this visual artists’ population—as it can also be an effect from the survey design, as younger artists may have been less ready to fill out the questionnaire and to adopt the self-reflexive position it implied. The first results also show that the interviewees are highly educated—58% have a university degree or equivalent, which is much more

 It is the case in Swiss tertiary art schools for the students—although only slightly: 54% of the students in art schools are female—as well as for the leading educational, the research and the administrative-technical personnel, where the percentage of women is over the average in art schools. See FSO (2018–2019): https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/en/home/statistics/education-­ science/pupils-students/tertiary-higher-institutions/universities-applied.html (students) and https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/de/home/statistiken/bildung-wissenschaft/personal-­ bildungsinstitutionen/tertiaerstufe-hochschulen.assetdetail.8946667.html (personnel, table 12a). 9   See FSO (2018): https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/travail-remuneration/ activite-­professionnelle-temps-travail/personnes-actives/age-moyen-population-active.assetdetail.7206209.html. 8

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(actually it’s the opposite proportion) in regard to the Swiss workforce.10 Such over-­representation of tertiary graduates is partly due to our inquiry dispositive (mainly situated in art schools). It’s also well known that those with higher education are more likely to respond to surveys (see f.e. Le Feuvre et al. 2018). Nevertheless, one may also think that this echoes the tertiarisation of the sector.11 Finally, exactly three-quarters (75%) of the respondents are native-­ born Swiss citizens, 14% are naturalised Swiss citizens, about 4% are Swiss citizens living abroad, and only 7% are foreign citizens who, according to the survey setting, at least work in Switzerland. All in all, 93% have the Swiss nationality (Table 5.1). This structure of origin is without surprise very different from the one of the overall workers population in Switzerland, of whom one-quarter (26%) are foreigners, against 15% of the Swiss visual artists. Regarding the linguistic regions, the Germanspeaking interviewees are clearly over-represented: 82% of the visual artists answered in German, while around two-thirds of the general population speaks German or dialect, probably echoing the fact that the study was initiated in Zurich. About 15% of the interviewees answered in French (whereas around 25% of the population speak French), corroborating the under-representation of the Latin part of Switzerland.12 To sum up, our sample of Swiss visual artists is feminised, older, much higher educated, and much more “Swiss” than the overall national working population and the Swiss visual artists population, to which it resembles most in terms of age.

  See FSO (2018): https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/travail-remuneration/ activite-­p rofessionnelle-temps-travail/personnes-actives/niveau-formation.assetdetail.8226421.html. 11  See FSO (2018): https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/travail-remuneration/activite­professionnelle-temps-travail/personnes-actives/niveau-formation.assetdetail.8226421.html. 12  Only 1.4% of the respondents live in Ticino, against around 4% of the Swiss population. 10

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Method In order to account for the different ways of practising the visual arts professionally in Switzerland, the social determinants of these ways of exercising and the consequences of this articulation in terms of self-­ representation of what “being an artist” means in the Swiss case studied, we favoured a modelling articulating specific multiple correspondence analysis (or ACM; Le Roux and Rouanet 2010) and clustering algorithms (Studer 2013). Our aim is, first of all, to visualise the space of professional positions observed among the visual artists interviewed by identifying the different types of professionalisms that polarise the professional space and what they imply in terms of relations with art institutions, the art market and the state. Once the structuring of professional practices and careers in the Swiss visual arts identified, we propose to analyse the “ingredients” (Bidart et al. 2013) that seem to favour access to one or the other of the poles of the professional space—including gender, but also educational capital, social capital, or age. Finally, we will see to what extent being located at one of the various poles of the professional space informs the visual artists’ self-representation on the basis of the more subjective questions, that is the meaning given to “being an artist”, the potential determinants of success and the social function of artistic activities. The variables chosen to construct the professional positions’ space via the ACM—the so-called active variables—are presented in Table  5.2. Three of these document, for each of the individuals questioned, the sources of income assuring the daily living expenses, the way in which artistic activities are funded, and the level of income earned per year from artistic activities. Our “illustrative” variables provide information on the socio-­ demographic characteristics of the individuals interviewed (sex, educational degree, age, partner’s occupation, proportion of people identified as “artists” among close friends) and are presented in Table 5.4 in the Annex.13  In the following analyses, the SLFS age categories of Table 5.1 have been replaced by decennial ones, which allows to avoid too little populated categories (as it would have been the case for 15–24 years). 13

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Table 5.2 Active modalities

Variables and modalities Sources of income  Art  Day job (cult.)  Day job (non-cult.)  Family  Foundation  Savings  Social benefits Who finances art activities  Self-financed  Pre-financing from galleries  Subscriptions (sales)  Donors, patrons  Foundations  Sponsoring  Public/government funding  Art institutions, museums  Other Income from artistic activities  >40,000 CHF per year  –40,000 CHF per year  –20,000 CHF per year  –10,000 CHF per year  –5000 CHF per year  NR Total

N

%

126 196 158 155 85 86 34

27.6 42.9 34.6 33.9 18.6 18.8 7.4

396 44 154 79 136 59 181 152 59

86.7 9.6 33.7 17.3 29.8 12.9 39.6 33.3 12.9

33 46 89 73 150 66 457

7.2 10.1 19.5 16 32.8 14.4

CHF: Swiss francs; NR: non-response

Artistic Precariousness The descriptive tables of these variables already call for some preliminary comments. In Table  5.2, we see that more than a third (35%) of the interviewed artists have a non-cultural day job—that is, a bread-and-­ butter job that has nothing to do with art or culture. And only 28% derive a significant income from their actual artistic practice. If these results are not necessarily surprising, they remind that for many artists— especially the most “ordinary” ones (Perrenoud and Bois 2017), who work at the lowest levels of the professional hierarchy—having a “double life” is relatively common (Lahire 2006; Throsby and Hollister 2003).

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Studies in theatre, music, and literature did show that only the “multiplication of the self ” (Menger 1997) and the fact of being a “plural artist” (Bureau et al. 2009) with a subtle mixture of intra- and extra-sectorial polyvalence and/or “polyactivity” (Rolle and Moeschler 2014) lead to relative professional stability and integration. Among our interviewees too, many are forced to conciliate professional spaces informed by totally different or even antagonistic symbolic logics. Being able to “make a living with art” appears to be relatively rare. In fact, being an artist is only seldom a full-time activity: 35% work full-time as artists (that is at a rate of 75%-100%), while 56% are part-time artists (at a rate of 30%-74%), who are mostly working either in the cultural and creative sector (32%, mainly as teachers, as art educators or mediators in the museum, exhibits and curatorial sector) or outside of it (13%), sometimes also doing house work (7%) or being in training (5%). Almost 5%—or one out of twenty—are “occasional artists” working less than 30% on their art. Moreover, one-third of the artists (34%) must also use the financial support of family members. This later remark also points out how different types of family capital can weigh in the launch and stabilisation of such careers. A significant proportion of respondents self-finance their creative activities in whole or in part (87%), while a very small group (10%) is regularly offered the opportunity to pre-sell their work to gallery owners. For onethird (33%) of the respondents, the artistic activities yield less than CHF 5000 per year, and overall, for half of them (49%) it does not exceed CHF 10,000. Only one-fifth (20%) earns around CHF 20,000, which is very little (as it means less than CHF 2000 per month), and one out of these earns between CHF 20,000 up to CHF 40,000 of gross income with his or her art, a sum still far below the gross median Swiss salary of CHF 6500 per month.14 At the opposite end of the income scale, 7% earn annually more than CHF 40,000, and only 1% reach up to 100,000 CHF with their artistic production. In these oppositions, one can see the great disparity of income in the artistic sphere and the concentration of the most profitable activities in the hands of a small elite group (Menger 2009). Art   Figure for 2016; see FSO: https://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/fr/home/statistiques/catalogues-­ banques-­donnees/communiques-presse.assetdetail.5226937.html. 14

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definitively does not bring wealth—in most cases, it is not sufficient as sole or even as main income. Although two-­thirds of the visuals artists indicate that this amount is for themselves alone, these figures suggest a general situation of financial precariousness.

A Tripolar Professional Space of Visual Artists In this section, we propose to build the social space of visual artists on the basis of their economic living conditions. Figure 5.1 represents the relative proportion of the overall inertia of the model expressed by each dimensions of our factorial analysis, that is, the variance rate by axes. The first two dimensions of our specific ACM contribute the most to the global inertia of the cloud (around 10% each). It is therefore these two dimensions that we will retain for our analysis. Figure 5.2 represents the modalities which contribute more than average (i.e. 2.7%) to the axes as well as their location in the space of the professional positions thus constituted. Having been supported by an actor (a gallery, a foundation, a patron) and being able to make a living only through their art production polarise the individuals along the horizontal axis (first dimension). On the right are those who practise visual arts in a self-sufficient way (i.e. whose artistic activity is the main return of money). On the left of the axis are

Fig. 5.1  ACM dimensions inertia

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Fig. 5.2  Space of professional positions (Dim1 and Dim2)

those who are little or unintegrated into the professional environment (i.e. whose artistic production is not financed by public or private actors). The second dimension—the vertical one—opposes the respondents according to the volume of their earnings related to their professional activity in the visual arts community. At the top of the axis are individuals who

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draw relatively small amounts (CHF 5000 per year) from their artistic activity and who potentially have a day job besides their artistic practice. This includes, in particular, artists whose professional activities have been funded by foundations or have produced some of their work through foundations’ action. The more people come down along this axis, the more they are making money through their artistic activities. At the bottom of the axis, we find the respondents who derive the most important income from their artistic works (more than 40,000 CH per year). Not so surprisingly for a field historically strongly linked to the market since it’s autonomisation from the state-controlled Académie with its Salon (Borja and Sofio 2009), it is those artists who are also most often followed by gallery owners who pre-finance all or part of their work that are living best from their artistic production. As other studies revealed, today more than ever, artists selling their production in the art market through galleries or other private intermediaries (collectors, art fairs) are the ones that are living best out of their artistic production (Graw 2010; Fasche 2013). To sum up, our analysis shows a tripolarisation of the visual artists’ professional space: (1) At the top left is a pole of individuals little or weakly integrated into the professional space, which try a priori to return and stay there but have little access to legitimating and/or funding bodies. (2) At the top right are the artists often supported by public or semi-­ public institutions (foundations, museums), who do not necessarily earn a lot of money with their artistic productions but who nevertheless have, we can assume, a recognition of their work. (3) In the end, at the bottom are the visual artists who are, in principle, the most caught up in market logic, whose main support are the private galleries. These actors in the art market are the ones who earn the most revenue from the sale of their work.

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Artistic Positions and Paths: Gender over Age In the following section, we will see if we can identify clusters out of our respondents according to their profile. Figure 5.3a represents the distribution of the visual artists according to their relative membership to five clusters15—again, the horizontal axis relates (from left to right) to the fact of being more and more supported and/or able to live from one’s art, while the horizontal axis refers (from top to bottom) to earning more and more from one’s artistic activity. We draw concentration ellipses (i.e. area where at least 90% of individuals with the desired characteristic are situated) regarding the cluster membership in order to visualise the main oppositions among clusters: • As already evoked at Fig. 5.2, Cluster 1 gathers the individuals working in relation with the public institutions. • Cluster 3 regroups the artists mainly evolving on the art market. • In Cluster 4, one finds the marginalised and/or the new entrants. • Clusters 2 and 5 occupy intermediate positions between Cluster 4 and the other two, gathering artists located in grey areas—which are numerous in the markets of artistic work—on the periphery of the two main professionalisation poles (on the periphery of “institutional” artists for Cluster 2, on the periphery of “market” artists for Cluster 5). Table 5.3 gives an idea of the weight of the different professional types identified by these clusters. The two clusters bringing together artists who earn all or most of their income through their artistic activity (the “institutional-­oriented” Cluster 1 and the “market-oriented” Cluster 3) are the least numerous, while the cluster located at the pole of the “marginals” (Cluster 4) gathers 30% or the largest groups of the interviewed artists, with the people not yet (or not anymore) integrated either to the institutional or the market pole—a distribution which illustrates the  They were calculated on the basis of the coordinates of the points for the first five dimensions of the ACM. The concentration ellipses represent areas where at least 90% of individuals with the desired characteristic are situated—here membership of a particular cluster. When these ellipses are elongated, the longest axis represents the axis along which the individuals in question are mainly located.

15

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Fig. 5.3  Clouds of individuals, cluster membership, and sex Table 5.3 Sample composition

Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Cluster 3 Cluster 4 Cluster 5

%

N

17.9 21.0 12.0 30.0 19.0

82 96 55 137 87

imbalance between the aspiring and the recognised in the fields of artistic work. Figure 5.3b then shows the location of the interviewed artists by gender. The women interviewed are often located on an axis from the left of the graph to the upper right. This socio-gendered difference in location indicates that women tend to be slightly less likely than men to be in professional spaces organised around galleries and the art market—and thus make more of their career with the support of public institutions or foundations. Despite the fact that they make up the majority of the arts school enrolment in many European countries (Provansal 2018), in the end women artists have little access to the most lucrative segments of the labour market, as it appears here. This “gender gap” has been well identified internationally (Quemin 2013; Hassler 2017), including two decades

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ago in cross-countries comparative studies,16 and is periodically thematised in the field itself.17 To explain the weaker presence of women visual artists at the “market-­ oriented” pole of professional space, scholars pointed out, for the case of France, the impact of intermediaries’ arbitrations and their gendered representations, as artistic notoriety is the result of the collective work of a series of intermediaries with whom the artists have complex relations (Lizé et  al. 2014). These interactions are generally based on a “devaluation of practices [identified as] feminine” (Provansal 2018, 64–67), effectively excluding many female artists from galleries and private collections. The tacit injunction to maintain relations of seduction with these same intermediaries (often men) can also divert certain visual artists from the art markets in order to invest in other spheres of activity—or, more importantly, to leave definitely their artistic career (ibid., 67–70; see, for the case of pop, rock or jazz music, Perrenoud and Chapuis 2016). Although we do not have empirical evidence to support these hypotheses in our case, we can think that similar mechanisms are at work in the Swiss visual arts’ context and contribute to explain why women are stuck in that precise pole of the cultural field. As gender appears to be a structuring dimension of the tripolarisation of the professional space, we have carried out complementary analyses in order to better understand the variations in socio-demographic profile of the interviewed artists according to their position in the professional space. Figures 5.4a, b, and c represent the location of individuals according to the classical variables of the level of education and age as well as for marital status (or, more precisely, the employment status of their partner, which notoriously influences the possibilities as an artist), and this, respectively, for men and women. In Figure 5.4a we see that the educational level does not seem to have a particular impact on the orientation of male careers (the circles are almost superposed). Women’s access to the pole of “institutional” art,  Cliché et al. (2001), comparing the situation of women in arts and media in eight European countries, found out, for visual arts, that women artists’ presence is at around 30–60% of art students, 38–45% of the artists, and 3–20% of lecturers and professors. 17  See, for example, in ARTnews, where an article recently pointed at the “major systemic problems” still rendering women’s status and visibility difficult in the visual arts (Reilly 2015). 16

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however—the main route to their professionalisation—is partly conditioned by the fact of having obtained a qualification of higher education. This finding suggests that women who make a living through their artistic activities have greater educational capital than their male colleagues or competitors and, thus, appear slightly over-selected, in the sense that, on average, they have a higher educational profile than their male counterparts (Buscatto 2009). Without precise data on the social origin of our respondents, it is impossible for us to know whether this over-selection of female visual artists doubles their social over-selection—even if, nevertheless, access to the tertiary degree in Switzerland remains the preserve of children in the higher fractions of the social space, especially for women (Falcon 2013, 163–174). In view of this remarks, we can interpret the over-selection of female artists as the expression of the specific obstacles that hinder women’s careers: to establish themselves durably in this professional space, women must be endowed with a greater volume of educational and social capital than those of men living in comparable environments. Figure 5.4b allows to point out another dimension of these gender inequalities, linked to age. We see here that age makes little difference in the group of men. Whether they are under thirty, between thirty and fifty or over sixty years of age, male visual artists may have the more or less same chances of being at one or the other of the three main poles of space professional. Coming to women, their position in the professional space differs greatly according to their age category. More precisely, those who are under thirty and those who are over sixty tend to concentrate at the upper-left of the graphic, that is, the pole with little or no integration into the professional circuits and very little income derived from their artistic activities. This confinement of women belonging to the youngest and oldest categories to the least “lucrative” pole of the space could refer to the specific difficulties of women to establish themselves in the long term in artistic professional spaces (as it is the case for popular or jazz music in French-speaking Switzerland: see Perrenoud and Chapuis 2016). This underlines the difficulties in accessing careers—which is manifested by the fact that the aspirants stay longer in waiting positions before seeing their career take off—as well as the difficulty in maintaining their professional commitment in the second part of their career. As other studies

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Fig. 5.4  Clouds of individuals, diploma, age, and partner situation

shown (Provansal 2018; Sinigaglia-Amadio and Sinigaglia 2015), the “injunction to conciliation” between family and professional life on the integration of women artists into the visual arts’ community can be an explanatory factor of such gender inequalities. Even more so, the Swiss gender regime remains shaped strongly by a male breadwinner/female care-giver model (Le Feuvre et  al. 2018). This injunction is one more illustration of the fact—also studied, for example, in the field of universities and research—that “subjective decisions shall not be explained only by subjective factors” and that the configurations of actors around women artists, be they informal, are like the strongly “gendered organisations” found in more formal work situations and careers and observable even in apparently informal interactions (Beaufaÿs and Krais 2005, 53, 61). In line with these previous remarks, Fig.  5.4c highlights the importance of domestic relationship in understanding the gendered orientation of professional careers. We can see that, in the case of male visual artists, “market-oriented careers” (the bottom-right of the graphic) are more common among individuals in a relationship with someone who does

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not work in the art worlds. Men in pairs with artists or cultural partners are more frequent at the pole of so-called institutional artists (at the upper-right). Differences are less pronounced for women visual artists (the circles are more concentric), and heterogamy (i.e. being with someone not belonging to the world of arts) seems less frequent, with seemingly more homogamous strategies (the larger “art” and “culture” circles) which are not directed towards the market pole (at the bottom-right). Since we have no precise information on the type of the partners’ jobs or on the labour division within the couples, we can only make the hypothesis that, in order to settle permanently in the art markets (where the competition is particularly harsh and where yields are certainly higher but also more speculative), to have support through a more stable professional position perhaps allows to consider more serenely risky professional strategies.

 isual Artists’ Self-Representation: V The Persistence of a Romantic Self-Image Once we have grasped the logic that polarises the professional space and the elements of what differentiates careers and positions, it remains to be understood to what extent these differences in practices and the inequalities they cover affect the meaning ascribed by the artistic workers of the visual arts sector to their professional activity. Historically, the imagery of the romantic artist emerged, as already noted, with the beginning of the autonomisation of cultural production fields—notably of art forms such as literature (Bourdieu 1996) or visual arts (Heinich 1993)—in the course of the nineteenth century. Although it hardly corresponds to the dominant professional reality of artists, this romantic representation still seems prevalent among the interviewees themselves. Asked why they did become artists, Swiss visual artists mostly chose the following five responses: “inner calling” (92%), “autonomy, independence” (92%), “love of art” (91%), “self-realisation, self-­awareness” (80%), and “talent” (80%). These are mostly, if not exclusively, interior qualities. On the subject of the purpose of art, the answer with the highest

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figure is “food for thought and emotions” (70%), while “subversion and criticism” or “contradiction and irritation” only reach around one-third. Asked what artistic types and attributes apply to themselves the most, the most cited options were “poet, philosopher” (50%), “inventor, creator” (45%), and “storyteller” (41%). And symptomatically, among the most cited aspects for a successful art career are inner qualities such as “hard work, persistence” (95%), “curiosity, inquisitiveness” (92%), “passion” (90%), “drive” (90%), “courage” (83%), and “authenticity” (81%). The most common answer about how the interviewees would consider their success in art is also a very internal one: “reaching my fullest potential and creating good projects” (96%). To deepen our analysis of representations of visual artists, we crossed the different questions on the self-presentation on official documents18 with the already described motives invoked by our interviewees as to their commitment in an artistic career. For each of these questions, we will present the trends within the sample as a whole and, in parallel, the overor under-representation of these trends within each cluster. Our aim is to show that beyond the sometimes very evanescent character that the notion of “artist” can encompass, artistic workers’ identities at work (Hughes 1996; Perrenoud and Bataille 2018) are largely dependent on their situation and the interactions in which fits their professional activity. Figure 5.5a represents, for example, the frequency of the different qualifiers used by our respondents to present themselves in the context of official documents related to their professional activity. We see here that it is the word “Artist” which is most often used (more than 40% of the cases). Then come such expressions as “Visual artist” and “Creative artist”, which still highlight the “artistic” nature of the activity. The specialty (in the figure: modality “Spe”), such as “photographer”, “web-designer”, is put forward in relatively few cases (around 10%). The qualification is also quite rarely mentioned (8%). When analysing the variations of use of these different qualifiers according to the cluster of membership, it is clear that to define oneself as “artist” is above all the privilege of the members of the clusters where the 18  The question referred to private (or “non-public”) administrative documents like tax returns documents, insurance policies or visas, on the basis of the assumption that this kind of self-­presentation would be particularly coherent with the respondents’ professional self-representation.

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Fig. 5.5  Self-presentation on official documents

artistic activity is the most profitable (the “institutional” Cluster 1 and, especially, the “market-oriented” Cluster 3, where the difference reaches 30 points). In Cluster 4, the one at the periphery of the visual arts professional space, it is more the side job or even the qualification that is used to present oneself. For Cluster 5 members, the technical specialty is more often cited in comparison with the entire sample. As the members of this cluster are situated between the more art market-oriented pole and the outsiders pole, it may be thought that highlighting the particular know-­ how held by the artistic workers in question maybe aims less at commercialisation of a particular artistic vision than at a technical knowledge. This would allow to get work enrolments in a segment of the labour market of the visual production relatively distant from the instances of consecration (foundation, museums, galleries) and populated of people little or not recognised as artists in their own right. Figure 5.6a shows in an overview the membership scale for all the items proposed by the already evoked question on motivational items which, in the opinion of visual artists, have led them to embark on the path of an artistic career. The modalities are ordered by level of relevance: the more one moves towards the lines at the bottom of the graph, the more the modalities mentioned apply “totally” to the way in which the respondents perceive their own career. We see here that the gradation is

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Fig. 5.6  Motivations to become an artist

almost linear between the modality applying the least (“To get rich”) and that applying the most (the very internal “Love of art” and “Inner calling”), following the diagonal of the table. The least relevant modalities are those that refer to a very stereotypical vision of celebrity (“To get rich”, “To become famous”), sometimes staged in certain cultural media or production, but very disconnected from the daily realities of artistic work as shown by studies. Above all, these little chosen modalities are in total opposition with the ideal of disinterestedness on which is based much of the illusio of the people who engage permanently in an artistic career (Bourdieu 1975), even on a relatively “ordinary” level (Perrenoud and Bois 2017). We already saw that the modalities appearing to be most in tune with this “romantic” ideal of the “uncreated” and “disinterested” artist (“Love of art”,

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“Talent”, “Inner calling”) are the most quoted as applying to our respondents. The terms referring to the more political role and to the social change which artists often pursue (“To give back to society”, “To change the world”, “Political commitment”, “Sense of mission”) occupy a place intermediate on the scale here constituted. However, depending on the cluster of membership, the hierarchy of values retrospectively invoked to have motivated the artistic career varies considerably. Interestingly, it is among the artists most committed to market logic (Cluster 3) that we find the proportion of respondents who most recognise themselves in the “romantic” and classical individual determinants of an artistic career, particularly the “Talent”, quoted 1.25 times more often as corresponding “perfectly” to what pushed them to make a career. This again confirms that the romantic imagery of the artist historically linked to the singularity regime can be compatible with the entrepreneurial dimension (Borja and Sofio 2009). The more social and political factors are also slightly more cited within this cluster than overall. Among respondents who are more supported by foundations and public authorities (Cluster 1), the weight of “Talent” or the thirst for “Independence” in vocation seems to be less important. Here aspects like “To give back to society” but also “Flexible working hours” are put forward more. Political and social change factors are also slightly more often cited by Cluster 1 artists. In Cluster 4, which regroups the marginalised and/or new entrants, “Love of art” seems to be the only motivation that stands out.

Conclusion Our analyses showed that the space of professional positions and careers in Swiss visual arts is structured by a tripolar logic. A more institutional-­ oriented pole—where artistic activities depend on foundations, public funds and art institutions—is opposed to a market-oriented pole where galleries dominate, both being at the antipodes of the third pole regrouping the non-integrated and/or marginalised.

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Moreover, the market-oriented pole and its competition are the most correlated to artistic independence in the perception of the professionals themselves. Interestingly then, the singularity regime is far from being outdated. Historically linked to the autonomisation of the field, the romantic (self-)representation of artists appears to be very compatible with the recent entrepreneurial artistic regime (Borja and Sofio 2009). It would be interesting to explore these results further in regard to the classical dichotomous polarisation of the artistic field (Bourdieu 1996). In particular, it could be fertile to see how this tripolar field does intersect with the classical dichotomous polarisation of the market between the valorised pole of limited production and the profitable but less recognised pole of large-scale production. Further on, our analyses have confirmed the existence of the “gender gap” long observed in visual arts (Pasquier 1983) in the Swiss case. In view of the previous results concerning the determinants of career orientation, it appears that the cluster where women are most often underrepresented (the market-oriented Cluster 3) is also the one where the recognition of “Talent” and the devotion to the “Love of art”—in other words, the main values determining full access to the status of artist since the end of the nineteenth century in most of the European and North American national space—are the most important determinants of the artistic career. It is difficult to know if women remain distant from such careers because they are perceived or perceive themselves as not having the “Talent”, or—more probably—if these “subjective” elements are the result of more subtle and less visible collective and informal mechanisms of co-optation (Pasquier 1983; Buscatto 2009). Following what Beaufaÿs and Krais (2005, 58, 60) observed for the academic field, one could say that the illusio of one’s art as “way of life” and the total “availability” it demands may be conflictual with the more familial and social role often still assigned to women. We can at least see that, by their under-representation in this professional sub-space dominated by the galleries and market logic, women visual artists are a priori less likely to be given a status of creative artist at the same level as men operating in such circles. This confirms the long observed link between visual artists’ careers and the structural properties of the field of visual art and, in particular, the domination of galleries in

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the latter (see White and White 1965; Giuffre 1999; Gautier 2019), moreover in an era of globalisation and of specialisation in the cultural fields leading some authors to speak of a “golden age of intermediaries” (Jeanpierre and Roueff 2014). Last but not least, from a gender perspective, artistic fields, often less formal in appearance, seem on the contrary to be more asymmetrical, since the “control” of the (often male) gatekeepers and networks regarding profitable positions and possibilities is “facilitated when criteria and rules are informal or even opaque” (Buscatto 2009, 10). Beyond the formal borders, which have largely been eliminated in this regard, there remain obstacles which are even more sly as they are “informal, less visible and cumulative at different moments of the career” (ibid., 8). The situation recalls the observation, more than 35 years ago, by Dominique Pasquier (1983, 422): “the putting away of women is done all along of their artistic curriculum, from the taking into account of their vocation to their confrontation with the professional actors of the market”. The analyses have also revealed possible Swiss specificities. As stated at the beginning, visual arts is a field which is classically or strongly linked to market logics. This is also, and maybe even more strongly, the case in the Swiss context, where the state historically did not support arts and culture very strongly (Thévenin and Moeschler 2018), notably visual arts (Jost 1987, 1989). The main reason is the historically rooted Swiss federalism, in which it is the cantons that formally have the sovereignty, also in cultural matters, the federal state intervening only on a facultative basis and if the authorities perceive—as it was the case for the “exception culturelle” of cinema (Moeschler 2011)—that “national interests” are at stake. Further factors are the adherence of the elites to liberalism, which results in the subsidiarity principle giving the lead in cultural matter to private initiative (Walzer 1988), and, last but not least, the will not to favour one of the three main linguistic-cultural communities in the country (Hauser 2010). Success in the art market—above all economic success—seems, in Switzerland, then to be the main indicator of artistic value and individuality. It is among our most invested respondents in this segment of the professional space that one finds indeed a more important attachment to the notions of “talent”, “independence” and, moreover, of devotion to the “love of art”. Whereas in other national contexts such as France

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(Dubois 1999; Urfalino 1989) or Norway (Kleppe 2016) it is the state that appears to be the main guarantor of the autonomy and specificity of the “disinterested” nature of cultural goods, here it is quite otherwise. As our analyses have shown, it is the market logic—and above all the dominant gallery system here—and its competition that are the most correlated to artistic independence in the perception of the professionals themselves. In the end, this result indirectly points to the fundamental impact of state categories in cultural matters in the ways of representing oneself and of living as an “artist”, especially at the intermediate and lower levels of the professional hierarchy (Perrenoud and Bataille 2017)— be in a somewhat different and specific way, through a state choosing to let the market be determinant in artists’ living conditions and modalities of self-representation.

Annex Table 5.4 Illustrative modalities

Variables & modalities Sex  Male  Female Diploma  Tertiary  Other Age  –30  31–40  41–50  51–60  >60 Partner  Works as artist  Works in the cultural field  Works in another field  No partner Total

N

%

178 270

39.7 60.3

261 189

58.0 42.0

55 67 90 134 110

12.1 14.7 19.7 29.4 24.1

78 45 210 11 457

22.7 13.1 61.0 3.2 100

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References Beaufaÿs, Sandra, and Beate Krais. 2005. Femmes dans les carriers scientifiques en Allemagne: les mécanismes cachés du pouvoir. Travail, genre et sociétés 2 (14): 49–68. Becker, Howard. 1982. Art Worlds. Berkeley, CA and London: University of California Press. Belting, Hans, and Andrea Buddensieg. 2009. The Global Art World. Audiences, Markets and Museums. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz. Belting, Hans, Jacob Birken, and Andrea Buddensieg. 2011. Global Studies. Mapping Contemporary Art and Culture. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz. Belting, Hans, Andrea Buddensieg, and Peter Weibel, eds. 2013. The Global Contemporary and the Rise of New Art Worlds. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Bidart, Claire, Maria Eugenia Longo, and Ariel Mendez. 2013. Time and Process: An Operational Framework for Processual Analysis. European Sociological Review 29 (4): 743–751. Boltanski, Luc, and Eve Chiapello. 1999. Le nouvel Esprit du Capitalisme. Paris: Gallimard. Borja, Simon, and Sévérine Sofio. 2009. Productions artistiques et logiques économiques: quand l’art entre en régime entrepreneurial. Regards Sociologiques 37-38: 23–43. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1975. L’invention de La Vie d’artiste. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 1 (2): 67–93. ———. 1984. Mais qui a créé les créateurs? In Questions de sociologie, 207–221. Paris: Minuit. ———. 1996 (1992). The Rules of Art. Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bram, Thursday. 2011. 10 Artists Explain How They Became Art Entrepreneurs. In American Express Company: Trends and Insights, March 2. Online: https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/business/trends-and-insights/ articles/10-artists-explain-how-they-became-art-entrepreneurs-1. Bureau, Marie-Christine, Marc Perrenoud, and Roberta Shapiro, eds. 2009. L’artiste pluriel. Démultiplier l’activité pour vivre de son art. Lille: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion. Buscatto, Marie. 2007. Femmes du jazz. Musicalités, féminités, marginalisations. Paris: CNRS Editions.

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Lindqvist, Katja. 2011. Artist Entrepreneurs. In Art Entrepreneurship, ed. Mikael Scherdin and Ivo Zander, 10–22. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Lizé, Wenceslas, Delphine Naudier, and Sévérine Sofio. 2014. Les stratèges de la notoriété. Intermédiaires et consécration dans les univers artistiques. Paris: Ed. des Archives contemporaines. Menger, Pierre-Michel. 1997. Le métier de comédien. Formations, activités et carrières dans la démultiplication de soi. Paris: Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication/La Documentation Française. ———. 2002. Portrait de l’artiste en travailleur. Les métamorphoses du capitalisme. Paris: Gallimard. ———. 2009. Le Travail créateur. Paris: Gallimard. Moeschler, Olivier. 2011. Cinéma suisse. Une politique culturelle en action: l’Etat, les professionnels, les publics. Lausanne: PPUR. Moroni, Isabelle. 2017. De la périphérie à la scène internationale. Parcours d’artistes à l’épreuve de la mobilité. In Swiss Journal of Sociology, “Art, Work and (De-)regulation” (Special Issue), ed. André Ducret, Andrea Glauser, Olivier Moeschler, and Valérie Rolle, 357–374. Pasquier, Dominique. 1983. Carrières de femmes: l’art et la manière. Sociologie du travail 25 (4): 418–431. Perrenoud, Marc, and Pierre Bataille. 2017. Artist, Craftsman, Teacher: “Being a Musician” in France and Switzerland. Popular Music and Society 40 (5): 592–604. ———. 2018. Comment être musicien ? Figures professionnelles des musiciens ordinaires en France et en Suisse. In SociologieS, “Identité au travail, identités professionnelles: quel(s) rapport(s)?”. Online: https://journals.openedition. org/sociologies/8882. Perrenoud, Marc, and Géraldine Bois. 2017. Artistes ordinaires: du paradoxe au paradigme ? Variations autour d’un concept et de ses prolongements. Biens Symboliques/Symbolic Goods (1). Online: http://revue.biens-symboliques.net/88. Perrenoud, Marc, and Jérôme Chapuis. 2016. Des arrangements féminins ambivalents: musiques actuelles en Suisse romande. Ethnologie Française 46 (1): 71–82. Provansal, Mathilde. 2018. Carrières des plasticiennes sous contrainte des normes de genre des intermédiaires. In Normes de genre dans les institutions culturelles, ed. Sylvie Octobre and Frédérique Patureau, 61–74. Paris: La Documentation française.

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6 The Art Market: Art’s Incomplete Mirror—Artistic Action’s Guiding Principles and Their Consequences for the Art Market Linda Dürkop-Henseling

On the issue of the relation between fine arts and the market, this contribution seeks to shed light on the relation between the creative urge—also known as the artist’s motives for action—and the art market. In this scenario, the art market is considered in terms of its interdependence with art institutions like museums or art academies. Many artists have a rather sceptical attitude towards these institutions and the art market in general, and some artists even go so far as to refuse presenting their artworks through these channels. Their creative work is not aligned with potential successes on the art market, though the art market has a huge impact on the number of sales and on the way artistic works are perceived by different recipients, ranging from art collectors to people solely interested in art. Nowadays, artistic and economic logics are evermore interwoven with each other (e.g. Neckel 2008, 40). Self-marketing has become a completely integrated part of the art scene. In this regard, Lutter’s L. Dürkop-Henseling (*) Christian-Albrechts University, Kiel, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Glauser et al. (eds.), The Sociology of Arts and Markets, Sociology of the Arts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39013-6_6

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analysis (2013, 10) stresses the predominance of the winner-takes-all phenomenon, which also holds true for the artistic labour market. Thus, the rejective stance of some artists is highly remarkable—especially since most of them cannot live from their artistic activity alone. This contribution consequently argues that the art market does not offer a representative picture of the actually created artworks and shows that the art market has to be designated as an “incomplete mirror” of art. The functions of the fine arts are restricted by the fragmented reflection. Of course, there are other reasons—such as the gallerists’ gatekeeper function—why some art pieces are presented on the scene and others are not. However, this contribution focuses on the principles of artistic action, which reflects artists’ attitudes towards the art market. The underlying thesis is based on an exploratory investigation carried out by the author (Dürkop-Henseling 2017). The present contribution summarises the main findings of the said research and puts them into context with the art market and the wider art system. In the exploratory study, 24 visual artists were asked about their motivations, underlying strategies of artistic action, attitudes towards the art system and about other fundamental issues related to their artistic work. The sample comprised 13 women and 11 men. The interviewees were painters and sculptors. Most of them graduated from art academies, were artistically active in the city of Hamburg and were unable to make a living from their artistic work. Only four of them were able to finance their everyday life through the sales of artworks. The average age was 45, the degree of prominence laid between somewhat limited reach on the local level and a rather further range on the regional or supra-regional scale. The respondents’ prominence is limited to the art scene. In fact, many respondents had been hosting an exhibition or were holding positions in art associations or unions. However, at the time of the guided interviews, in 2012 and 2013, none of the respondents was considered to be as famous like, for example, Gerhard Richter. The analysis was based on Kluge’s stage model typification (1999) and was supplemented by a structured qualitative content analysis based on Kuckartz (2012). On the macro-sociological level Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory was adopted, and on the micro-sociological level the sociology of knowledge perspective. The systems theoretical perspective grants

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a wider perspective on the art sector, and allows, for example, to include artists’ objectives and their educational background into the analysis. Since attitudes are not explicitly related to the topic at hand, the sociology of knowledge perspective is expedient1 and the thoughts of Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1993), presented in their well-known work The Social Construction of Reality, were drawn on. This contribution is structured as follows. In order to unfold the thematic relevance more precisely, the first section concentrates on the link between the art market, the artists and their public perception. The art market plays a role for all artists and yet many reject it accepting that their visibility is limited or non-existent. The subsequent section illustrates the potential consequences of the way artists and their art works are misrepresented on the art market. In order to achieve an in-depth understanding of the underlying issues, the article goes on to shed some light on how the art system currently presents itself, explores which principles guide artistic actions, and particularly focuses on the art system and what their artistic motives are. The conclusion then summarises the results of the analysis and discusses the potential consequences the incomplete picture of the actually created artworks has.

The Art Market’s Vital Role for Artists For a number of reasons, the art market is of major importance for artists. One reason is how the public perceives them and their works. The public mostly learns about artists through the media, and the media learns about them mostly through the art market. Even here, Luhmann’s statement according to which “[w]hatever we know about our society, or indeed about the world in which we live, we know through the mass media” (Luhmann 1996, 9) applies. News about artists often contain extremes, for example, an artist daring to create something extraordinary or a painting being sold for millions. An example of an artist’s extraordinary actions is street art artist Banksy. He opened a hotel in the crisis-shaken Palestinian city of Bethlehem. The media covered the event by also portraying a  Nevertheless, this contribution refers only in a limited way to the latter perspective.

1

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masked Palestinian and an Israeli soldier engaged in a pillow fight (Raddy 2017). However, news items with this type are rare. The majority of news articles revolve around large sums of money earned on the art market and highlight the standing of a specific artist. It is admittedly an unequivocal, oversimplified way to stress both the artist’s impact and standing. Instead of making statements about an artist’s style, technique, intention, or so-­ called message conveyed by the artwork, the media merely cite sales numbers. Moreover, it is not only the artwork that lacks an adequate media portrayal but also the artist’s role itself is still surrounded by myth (e.g. Feulner 2010). This leaves room for speculations around those who work in the art field. Here again, sales numbers and the artist’s classification serve as indicators for their success.2 But it is not just the media which turn to sales numbers to illustrate the value of artists and their work; the buyers of art also revert to sales prices to compensate for their lack of experience to gauge the historical and contemporary value of paintings or sculptures (e.g. Beckert and Rössel 2004). In fact, both the artwork and the artist’s standing are determined by experts and institutions undergoing an intersubjective process of evaluation and awarding reputation. Actors in this process are gallerists, curators, critics, art dealers, journalists, collectors or art academies (ibid.). Therefore, it seems to be indispensable to investigate to which extent the perception of an artwork is influenced by these framing conditions (Stiegler 2015). Parts of these framing conditions are social structural ones such as artists’ educational background or their institutional embedment within the art system; both aspects are discussed in greater detail in other chapters of this publication. Since O’Doherty’s Inside the White Cube (1986),3 it is commonly known that the way art is presented influences the way art is perceived. In sum, when looking at an artist, we need to take his or her social environment into account. The example of a court artist might be illustrative here as they had to care for themselves by working closely with the gentry (e.g. Warnke 1996). Understanding their  See the contributions of Alain Quemin and of Nathalie Moureau in this volume.  O’Doherty (1986) discusses how exhibition rooms painted in white create a room in which all outside phenomena are left out. 2 3

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art is only possible if you also consider the social circumstances they lived in. Kaiser and North’s (2017) study reveals the art market’s importance for artists in art history. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, lively trade brought Dutch paintings to Germany and increased the general demand for Dutch art. This demand then led to German artists to manufacture “Dutch” subjects for the German art market (ibid., 16). Another aspect to be considered is that the art market as a system has developed over time. Up to the seventeenth century, artists also were the vendors of both their own and other artists’ artworks, which were produced for the anonymous art market (ibid., 90). Nowadays, the art market is perceived much wider than in former times as it contains galleries and multiple art institutions. Returning to the impact of the artist’s social environment on his or her artistic work, other professional groups and institutions in the art system are of particular relevance. Becker uses the concept of “art worlds” (see Becker 2011) by taking up philosopher’s Arthur C.  Danto’s notion (Danko 2012, 64), who initially coined it. For Becker (ibid., 64), the term labels a group of actors who are part of the creative process. He emphasises that every piece of art is a joint effort of various actors in which the individual artist is only one part of the puzzle. Here, Becker (ibid.) makes a distinction between artists and aides. How these single actors or organisations are related to and interact with one another is perceived differently. Following Müller-Jentsch’s definition (2011, 27), the triad—artist, artwork, and public—is framed by art critics and the art market. Von Alemann (1997, 220) adds other elements like sponsors, foundations and cultural policies to the art system. In this respect, it is not just the art market which impacts the artist’s role but the whole machinery of galleries, art shows, academies, art criticism, collectors, cultural policies and many more. The media are part of this machinery, too. In fact, apart from the art market, publicly founded exhibitions for contemporary art are also important for the artists in the field and equally serve as platforms for their artistic work. Large exhibitions of modern art, subsidised with tax money, like the Documenta 14 (e.g. Latimer and Szymczyk 2017) in Kassel and Athens, are quite popular. According to Fleck (2013), from a global point of view there are two camps when it comes to exhibitions: the art market and art institutions like museums

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and art fairs on the one hand, and the art curatorial community on the other. Fleck (ibid., 21) understands the latter as a contrast to the former because it highlights the fine arts’ political and social functions, which would be clearly demonstrated at major European exhibitions such as the Documenta or the Berlin Biennale. Moreover, he suggests (ibid.) that neither the art market nor the curatorial community is a guarantor for an artist’s success or fame, and notes that more and more artists are excluded from the art audience and from access to the art market. Only few artists succeed in securing high prices for their artworks (ibid., 93). Hence it is important to consider all actors in the art field. It has to be borne in mind that every collector, gallerist, art critic, professor, and others, be it directly or indirectly, relates their work to the art market (Mejstrik and Melichar 2006, 5). There is one exception, however, and that is the curatorial community that shapes the publicly founded exhibitions. Overall, the art market appears to play a significant role for most actors engaging in the art scene, particularly as the market has gone through processes of differentiation over the years and is no longer limited to art galleries and fairs.4 It should also be mentioned that even artists who work closely with the art market do not automatically receive the art market’s full attention. For example, the investment funds focus on a very specific artwork form while ignoring other works: “Art investment funds paint a rather black-and-white picture of the art market. They typically base their business models on a specific and limited product—durable, singular art goods (paintings, overwhelmingly), while practically turning a blind eye to the rest of art production” (Horowitz 2011, 2). The link between fine arts and the art market is reflected by taking a closer look at the gallerists who are responsible for the marketing of artworks or rather of the artist. They are interested not only in the  Artists have always endeavoured to market their artworks on their own (Oberste-Hetbleck 2010, 18) or by collaborating with single gallerists. In any case, today more and more artists use e-­commerce platforms such as eyestorm.com, artspace.com or www.curart.de to distribute their pieces. But even these platforms do not turn their back on classical institutions of art distribution. Curart (2017) notes that all artists with whom the platform work with are art academy graduates and emphasises that, moreover, some of the artists have already managed to make a name for themselves among collectors.

4

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promotion of artists but also in the economic benefit of their gallery, and their business model therefore combines art and profit (e.g. Seegers 2014, 138; Velthuis 2005, 51). In this regard, Bourdieu (1999, 272) pointed out that it is a gallerist’s function to handle the economic side of art so that the artists can be perceived as not interested in anything economic. Von Alemann’s (1997, 218) perspective in regards to gallerists differs from Bourdieu’s as he sees them following a “certain agenda” and as he believes that gallerists looking for long-term collaborations with artists do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. It is rather a specific challenge for gallerists to fulfil this double mission as their professional activity consists of two logics,5 and Velthuis (2005, 51) summarises: “[the gallery] is a site where two contradictory logics, those of the art world and of the economy, conflict”. Of course, one cannot ignore that in the general perception the close link between artists and art market is also a result of (and a factor for) the growing number of artists: statistics of artists’ social security reveal a rapid growth of the artist population. To give an example, in Germany there were 18,000 insured artists in 1991, and in 2016 their number had increased to 64,000 (Künstlersozialkasse 2017). These growing figures also indicate that more and more artists are competing on the art market and striving to achieve success. Another example can be found in the wake of planning a new art fair in Berlin. The online magazine Welt (2017) reported that Berlin alone has around 6000 artists managed by gallerists, not counting approximately 6000 more artists that are on the market without being represented by a gallery. Taken together, all these aspects lead to the conclusion that the art market, next to other factors, plays an important role for artists and their creative urge. And yet there are numerous artists who are not represented through this channel and who can be described as somewhat “invisible” to the public. The next section illustrates the resulting consequences for them.

 See also the contribution by Michael Gautier in this volume.

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 rt’s Reduction to the Upper Segment A of the Art Market The immense importance of the art market for the artist is indicated by both the economic perspective and the public perception. The artist’s professional activity is inevitably associated with the art market, in particular with regard to museums, art critics, and other art-related institutions. Moreover, artworks are often contextualised with the high-priced art market. In that respect, this contribution assumes that artists who follow a specific guiding principle and consciously deny collaborations with art market actors and institutions to a large extent are not represented on the art market and thus do not come into art collectors’ or the public’s view. They are not perceived as players in the art system. This thesis proves to be relevant for two reasons. On the one hand, artists are considered to be the epitome of creativity6 (e.g. Reckwitz 2012, 10). Creativity basically is of great importance in modern Western societies, though only few sociological analyses focus on the term and the underlying conceptual meaning (e.g. Göttlich and Kurt 2012; Florida 2002).7 With regard to the art market as an incomplete mirror of art, most of the potential that creativity offers is not exploited. Moreover, according to Florida (2010, 9), artists (and other professions) have the capacity for ground-breaking ideas which are vital for regional and municipal developments. Other authors even take the artist’s role as to be the society’s new ideal type. In their opinion, creativity—which is also known to have the ability to develop innovative solutions—begins with surpassing conventions, a pivotal characteristic of artists (Fastert et  al. 2011, 12). Furthermore, art can also have an impact on the economy, which might signify nothing less than innovation (Krause 2013). Boltanski and Chiapello (1999) even presume that capitalism changed  The concept of creativity is defined in different ways. What all definitions have in common, however, is that “[c]reativity involves thinking that is aimed at producing ideas or products that are relatively novel and that are, in some respect, compelling” (Sternberg 2006, 2). 7  See also Dave O’Brien’s contribution in this volume. 6

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through the integration of what they call the “artist’s critique”. As the aforementioned concepts of creativity and innovation exemplified, not only progressive effects are attributed to art, but art is also reflexive. Through art as a medium, society has the chance to reflect upon itself. In short, art can be seen as a mirror of modern societies (Schwietring 2010, 224). That is why artwork without any credentials is also a missed chance for reflection. Besides these rather abstract creativity concepts, other aspects that also play an important role are innovation and reflection as well as the labour market. Art as part of the labour market is recording a heavy increase (Haak 2008, 244). Every artist is facing the challenge to deal with both the creative urge and the galleries or other relevant institutions. While the latter have become attractive workplaces for art-interested people, access barriers like academic degrees from art academies or the importance of good relations with museums or gallerists are increasingly relevant. Luhmann announced in his book Art as a Social System (1995) the emergence of the art system as a functional system. From Luhmann’s perspective, art can be understood as an autonomous system mainly concerned with itself. Indeed, before the fifteenth century, artistic production was considered as a craft that was only used for representative purposes of the church or the gentry. But since then artistic production has increasingly been characterised by the ideas of the individual artist and has aimed at reaching a broader audience. This development became possible through changing production conditions: the autonomous art system evolved. According to Luhmann, this development began during the second half of the eighteenth century (Luhmann 2008, 118), as well as the establishment of academies, art critics, museums, art associations, and, also, the art market. However, in recent years one can observe that art has begun to be reduced to the upper art market segment. Taking a more differentiated look, the art system will help to understand this process better. In the next section the differentiated art system will be illustrated with the help of a graphic and with a typology of guiding principles of artistic action.

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F rom a General to a Professionalised Art System In illustrating the differentiated art system, Fig. 6.1 is based on theoretical considerations and empirical data gained from the 24 interviews with artists in an explorative study.8 Professionalised art system Mediation Acquisition context context*

Formation context

Artists with academic education (predominant) Works of art

Publishers Galleries Art Trades Museums

e.g., Art associations

Exhibitions

(strong framing) Art market / Art critics / Educational institutions / Artist groups / Artist associations (weak framing) Formation context

Mediation context

Exhibitions Artists without without university artistical context*** degree** Off-galleries Works of art Selfpromotion of artists

Acquisition context* Art reception without institutional framing

*

The context of acquisition ranges from the mere consideration of an artwork over the intensive discourse with an artwork to its purchase. Art-interested people or buyers (such as collectors or museums) can be found here.

**

Artists with an university degree can also be found in this context of formation.

*** Exhibitions without artistical context can take place in libraries or offices for example.

Fig. 6.1  The differentiated art system  For a more detailed figure, see Dürkop-Henseling (2017).

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When talking about the autonomous art system, one has to consider that the system has undergone internal differentiation. This process is linked to an inequitable distribution of professional and economic opportunities, especially for artists. The general art system has little restrictions, but also little professional and economic opportunities. Access to the professional art system is more demanding but at the same time promises more career opportunities. Assuming that the art system is divided in two parts, the lower dashed framing stands for both the recipient’s and the artist’s easy access to the art system. As the profession of an artist does not require a job-specific training, the formation context mainly (but not exclusively) includes artists without an academic education. The same applies to the mediation context including self-promotion and various exhibition formats that do not match classic gallery concepts, for example, libraries or other public facilities. Accordingly, no requirements need to be met in the acquisition context. The reception of artwork takes place in various exhibition formats or media portrayals without presupposing art association enrolments, a degree in art or additional literature for the artwork. In sum, the whole content in the lower dashed framing represents the general art system. The three terms—formation, mediation and acquisition context—are borrowed from Smudits et al. (2014, 151). These terms are not related to any theoretical conception underlying this contribution. They are rather used to structure the artistic field in order to analyse it by taking different theoretical perspectives. They are supposed to underline the wide range of phenomena with respect to artwork’s production, distribution and reception, which goes beyond conventional ideas. Institutions such as the art market or educational establishments are found in the middle part of Fig. 6.1. The difficulty is to gain access to the profession. For example, enrolment in art academies is tied to a specific graduation. Even memberships in art or professional associations are not easily granted. According to Thurn (1997, 117), art traders and curators fall into the category of “gatekeepers”. These gatekeepers have a huge influence on an artist’s career. They not only determine the validity of the artwork but also demand artists to play their role and behave in a

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professional manner during public events (ibid.). Due to a lack of transparency in the scene, numerous other actors in the art field take on the gatekeeper role. “Because of its subjective nature and the fact that the quality of art is not directly quantifiable, art experts and critics play a significant role in spreading information in the market and making normative assessments of artists and the work that they produce”, McAndrew (2010, 14) summarises. The art market, educational institutions and other institutions have a relatively low impact on the general, freely accessible art system. Here this is conveyed by the label “weak framing”. The professionalised art system is situated in the upper part of Fig. 6.1. The solid line indicates that artists have to fulfil certain requirements to be granted access to this system. As a result, the number of artists with academic education and an academic degree predominates in the formation context. But access is hampered by the fact that the institutions located in the middle of Fig. 6.1 have a strong impact on the professionalised art system (i.e. strong framing), especially when compared to their weak influence on the general art system. Indeed, galleries and museums mainly work with artists who have an academic background. In this regard, the label “professionalised art system” is closely related to the term profession.9 This contribution relies on Mieg’s (2003) concept of profession and Dürkop-Henseling’s (2017) findings that professionalisation trends exist in the art system if aspects of academisation, professional associations and the conviction that reflection is a major element of art are considered. This first figure is not only a simplified illustration of the art system but can also serve as an analytical tool. The mere discussion about the concept of art already unfolds empirical difficulties of outlining the boundaries between the general and the professionalised art system. This is where Luhmann’s systems theoretical perspective proves to be important, and referring to his approach offers two  The German term profession has a slightly different connotation than the English definition of “professionals”, where the term “professions” includes professional groups with high levels of autonomy (Mieg 2003, 11). 9

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advantages. The first advantage is that it covers an extensive range of artists and that the field of art is considered to be an autonomous subsystem of society. Moreover, the systems theoretical perspective asks whether the binary coding of a system is used, thus either enabling or hampering meaningful follow-up communication (Luhmann 1995, 85). According to Luhmann, we can talk about art when innovative or simply alternative principles of order are revealed through any kind of artistic work. The artist only plays a subordinate role because systems consist of communication and artworks serve as communication tools (e.g. Luhmann 1984). However, if the focus is on the artwork, all the people involved in the production of artwork are considered. The question is not whether one has an academic education but rather whether one can continue the communication within the system with one’s artwork. The second advantage lies in the system’s differentiation. Luhmann (1984, 37) anticipates that every single system is able to undergo processes of differentiation whereby subsystems arise. All institutions and actors in the art system presented in Fig. 6.1 basically contribute to art’s functions even though they act in various subsystems so that communication takes place within the different subsystems. Thus, it is possible to talk about the art system as a whole; the art system as a whole is composed of various subsystems to which institutions or actors can be assigned to. An exhibition in a small municipal library also belongs to the art system, although gallerists or art critics might not recognise it. Unnoticed exhibitions are part of the art system, but they are not necessarily part of the art market. This section stresses that the art market is only a small part of the art system. However, it is of particular relevance for the professionalised art subsystem since it frames it even more than the general art system. According to the respondents of our field study, the art market prefers to rely on artists who belong to the professionalised art system, and specifically on those with an academic education. For example, gallery owners recruit new artists by attending end-of-semester exhibitions at art colleges (Seegers 2014, 142). In addition, it can be assumed that there is a back-­ and-­forth influence between the professionalised art system and the general art system.

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 uiding Principles of Artistic Action G in the Differentiated Art System The assumption that not every artist aims at acting in the professionalised art system is backed by the illustration of the differentiated art system in the foregoing section. Despite the art system being evermore differentiated, all artists participate in the system as a whole and can be assigned to one of the two subsystems, namely the general art system or the professionalised art system.10 Thus, the art market is not necessarily decisive or even relevant for every single artist: a closer look at the guiding principles of artists reveals that artistic action is much more differentiated and by far not only guided by the objective to achieve success on the art market. The guiding principles in the following subsections do not only refer to artists’ attitudes towards the professionalised art system but also to the basic motives of artistic action in general. An artist’s work is, among other things, influenced by fundamental attitudes, values, and objectives.11

 rtistic Work Between Creative Urge and Pursuit A of Recognition Through the interviews conducted with the artists, it became clear that the fundamental motivation of artistic action can be situated between two extremes. This is reflected by the x-axis of Fig. 6.2, which relates to the profound sense of the artist’s action. One extreme indicates that the artist’s action aims at achieving a positive outcome in either a material way or in his or her requirement of self-knowledge. Overarching issues are not in his or her focus (Dürkop-Henseling 2017, 211). The other extreme of the x-axis suggests that the artist located there is interested in issues regarding general societal challenges and crises and that he or she addresses them. Their focus is not on themselves but on social criticism regardless of their own celebrity.  It has to be kept in mind that an artist can act in the professionalised and general art system at the same time. 11  The guiding principles of artistic action refer to attitudes towards the art system, the art term, and so forth, but they do not reflect the respondents’ position within the art system. 10

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High

Pursuit of recognition in the professionalised art system

Pragmaticprofessional artist

Pragmatic artist

Criticalprofessional artist

Critical artist

Low

Profound sense of action Feedback, success Implementation of a gift

Social criticism

Art as a mouthpiece

Fig. 6.2  Leading concepts of artistic actions in the art system

Overall, Weber’s methodological concept of the “ideal-typical approach” comes into effect (Kaesler 1995, 229). The ideal type is not a hypothesis but rather a heuristic device to allocate empirical data to an (imagined) ideal context. Thereby an ideal type is a construction— derived from reality and repeatedly re-evaluated by reality (ibid., 234). The y-axis in Fig.  6.2 shows which endeavours interviewees have undertaken to achieve recognition in the professionalised art subsystem. The appreciation can be expressed in artworks’ sales numbers through the responsible gallerist but also through the permission to participate in museum exhibitions, art associations or by becoming a jury member in a competition (Dürkop-Henseling 2017, 211). This pursuit of recognition

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can range from low to high efforts: some artists undertake very strong, some only very little efforts to find recognition in the professionalised art system. The y-axis thus reflects the typology’s derivations and the functional aspects, which will be explained next. As soon as the interviewees or other artists start with their artistic production, especially when they exhibit their pieces of art, they are related to the differentiated art system—whether they like it or not. Presuming the system’s internal differentiation into a professionalised and a general subsystem, artists need to decide which subsystem they want to belong to. But before going into detail, it has to be noted that the typology’s derivation originates from the structured interviews already mentioned. The evolutionary process of the typology cannot be outlined here. However, one main aspect needs to be addressed in order to go into the typology’s comprehensive explanation: the understanding of the art term differs between the respondents and has an impact on their respective selection of art’s functional criteria. The understanding of the art term was specifically targeted in the interviews and yielded two main aspects: it reinforces the creative urge, and it is a reason why artists strive for recognition within the professionalised art system. While some artists refer to a broader definition and conceptual meaning of art and therefore consider all products designated as art by others as artworks, other artists employ a more critical understanding of the term and consider social criticism and reflection to be the main functions of art. They deny that pieces created for decoration or entertainment purposes can be regarded as artworks. Both conceptions of the term are closely related to the different motivations of artistic action. If the artist is mainly concerned with his or her own artistic act, his or her understanding of the art concept is only of secondary importance. Art serves its purpose; the way others perceive art is subordinated because the artist is interested neither in the fundamental issues of art nor in the relations between society and art. To give an example, artist E states that: “I look at everything without judging because it is extremely difficult to come up with an idea and implement it. And sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn’t. Not everything suits everybody’s taste. So, I would never say ‘What’s this, what did they do?’” But if the artistic work is primarily used to reflect societal problems, the respondents apparently employ a

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critical understanding of the art term. This is confirmed by artist F who regards only few works as true pieces of art. She criticises that art as a term is used in an inflationary way: even kindergartners create so-to-say art. “Essentially, there is not much left I consider as art. For me, art is about philosophy and human’s basic needs to find themselves in it. This has little, if anything, to do with beautiful pictures on a wall. It’s much more complex. Nowadays, everything is considered to be art, even children in kindergarten make art.” The interviews show that the art market does not have the same meaning for every single artist. Their attitude towards the art market is influenced by their respective understanding of art as a concept and their different links to the professionalised art system. As Fig.  6.1 demonstrates, the art market and the professionalised art system are more closely related to each other than the art market and the general art system. Artists undertaking lower efforts to establish themselves in the professionalised art system also undertake fewer endeavours to be represented on the art market. Why this is the case is discussed in the next section.

From Pragmatic to Critical Attitudes: A Typology The typical characteristics of artistic action’s guiding principles are presented along the dimensions motives for action, goals, and strategies, as well as the connection to the art system.

The Pragmatic Artist: Exploiting a Gift An artist whose work follows the guiding principle of the pragmatic artist pursues the primary objective to create his or her own piece of art. His or her artwork reflects his or her creative urge and artistic talent. Though the results take priority, he or she gives hope to positive feedback in form of studio sales or general resonance. Sales or feedback in general do not represent his or her primarily objective and motivation for artistic action. But it is also possible that he or she equally emphasises self-knowledge. The artists guided by this principle are basically looking for recognition

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or rather positive feedback of the general art market or even the public. The creative urge is pragmatically used in the sense that somebody has a talent and employs it for multiple purposes. Those artists are not necessarily striving for success. They feel either neutral or sceptical towards the professionalised art system. There is little connection between them and the underlying strategies. They have only infrequent contact to gallerists or irregularly participate in local group exhibitions. This stance also indicates that those artists’ strategy sometimes displays entrepreneurship, and that some of them engage in networking. An artist with this kind of ideals has a broader understanding of art. Therefore, he or she is more likely to label a wider range of pieces as “art”. Closely related to his or her broader understanding, he or she assumes that art has a wider range of functions. Often artists derive their inspiration from their environment. Other artists are regarded in a critical (distinctive) manner (Dürkop-Henseling 2017, 212). To give an example, the painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye (1977–) can be categorised as an artist who works with the guiding principle of the pragmatic artist (Dürkop-Henseling 2017, 250).12 Although her artworks are quite successful and are sold at high prices, her link to the professionalised art system is merely a pragmatic one. According to her, everything has to be related to something else. But this is not relevant to Lynette Yiadom-Boakye as she only paints for her own sake. She admits that she is still prepared to fail as an artist. In this case she would go to look for another job. Her pragmatism is shown by the fact that she also works as an author, which indicates that she does not solely want to be seen as a visual artist.

 e Pragmatic-Professional Artist: Recognition Th as a “Real” Artist An artist who follows the guiding principle of a pragmatic-professional artist wants his or her artistic talent to be recognised and their artwork should reflect their artistic ability. They want to be recognised as “real”  Lynette Yiadom-Boakye was not interviewed in our field study.

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artists in contrast to those who are guided by pragmatic principles. They expect that their artworks create feedback. In the best case, they sell their art within the professionalised art system and their artworks display their creative phases and mark their growth as an artist. Similar to the first type, the inner creative urge is guided by the artist’s desire to exploit their talent. Here, the label pragmatic-professional is also linked to the idea that somebody has a gift and uses it. Considering the elaborations in section “From a General to a Professionalised Art System”, being professional indicates a certain level of expertise and the desire to become a part of the professionalised art subsystem. They try to reach recognition within this system and seek to take advantage of close contacts to institutions such as galleries, museums and art associations that might distribute their artworks. Those artists are aware of the opportunities offered by the professionalised art system, even though they have a rather critical attitude towards this subsystem. Furthermore, their overall strategy shows commitment and long-term orientated entrepreneurship while constantly maintaining networks. Artists who work with this guiding principle interpret art in a wider sense with a comparable wide range of functions. For them an artwork is easily considered as a product, and they derive their inspiration from the environment. Since success guides the artistic action in the professionalised art system, other artists are regarded as competitors and perceived in a critical (distinctive) manner (Dürkop-Henseling 2017, 213). Andy Warhol (1928–1987) can be characterised as a pragmatic-­ professional artist as he worked his whole life for the embodiment of a specific image (Mancoff 2010). His ability to present himself was one reason for his success, while “Warhol never gave up his early ambitions to be recognized as a fine artist rather than a purely commercial one” (Lucie-­ Smith 2009, 314).

 e Critical-Professional Artist: Offer Criticism Within Th the Profession An artist whose work is influenced by the guiding principle of the critical-­ professional type seeks—similar to the pragmatic-professional

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artist—recognition as an artist. Contrary to the other guiding principles explained before, the critical-professional artist focuses on the reflection or rather critique of society instead of him- or herself. His or her artworks are rather “means to an end” to initiate discourse and critique than merely products for the art market. Even though he or she also aims at achieving recognition in the professionalised art system and looks for a way to get into it, he or she regards the system in a critical way. In order to shape or follow the art discourse, the critical-professional artist engages in art institutions, in art associations or off-galleries. Their own success is not the ultimate motive. The artist has a certain interest in achieving the power to shape art’s discourse. The implementation of critical thoughts and questions is at the core of their creative urge. Art in this sense functions as a mouthpiece. The label “critical-professional” is chosen because it relates to the reflecting on, and criticising of, society, but also implies the desire to belong to the professionalised art subsystem. The strategy of critical-professional artists includes little to no entrepreneurship, but the maintenance of networks is important. Those artists have a rather critical understanding of art. That’s why the range of art’s functions is more limited in comparison to the guiding principles presented before. Artworks are only partially considered as goods. Their inspiration through the environment in terms of ideas, creations or conditions plays a minor role within the creative process. Critical-professional artists have mixed feelings about their colleagues in the system. They meet other artists in both collegial and competing ways (Dürkop-­ Henseling 2017, 214). The artist Ai Weiwei is a good example as he is known as a popular opponent of the Chinese government, while he also engages in the professionalised art scene (Rauterberg 2013, 144). His works always have strong artistic and political or social implications.

The Critical Artist: Offer Criticism with Art The primary objective of the artist who works by the guiding principal of a critical artist is to reflect on or rather criticise society, whereas his or her own role is of minor importance. He or she does not strive for

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recognition as he or she assesses the art system in a very critical manner. What both the critical and the critical-professional artist have in common is their belief that art is a means to an end rather than a value in itself. Therefore, the creative process is very important for this type of artist. Similar to the critical-professional artist, the creative urge of the critical artist manifests itself in implementation of critical thoughts and issues. Art is, again, employed as a mouthpiece. The label critical refers to the reflection on, or, rather, critique of, society. To some extent the strategy of the critical artist focuses on upholding networks, while entrepreneurship is not a part of his or her approach. Critical artists use a narrow definition of the art term, which results in a narrow perception of art’s functions. They refrain from characterising art as a product, and within the creative process, material artefacts of any kind play almost no role for the artists’ inspiration. Other artists are seen as part of the discourse and not as competitors (Dürkop-Henseling 2017, 215). The graffiti artist Banksy (Reinecke 2012, 47) can be characterised as a critical artist. He worked without any references to galleries, museums or other art institutions for a long time. But meanwhile, his pieces of art are represented on the art market.

 ragmatic and Critical Guiding Principles P and the Art Market To support the thesis that many artists do not aim at becoming a part of the art market and therefore do not receive proper recognition from experts or the public, it is crucial to look especially at the guiding principles of the pragmatic and the critical artist. Of course, the pragmatic artist wants to earn money and does not object to selling his or her works. This type of artist also embraces feedback from different parts of society, ranging from neighbourhoods and communities to articles in the regional or national press. Moreover, information about his or her current artwork is often displayed on the artist’s own website. This is when differences to the pragmatic-professional artist come to the fore as the pragmatic artist is not interested in discussions

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and events at art clubs, professional associations or political events. He or she sometimes takes part in joint exhibitions but only because he or she feels forced to. In addition, they only cooperate with gallerists if doing so does not restrict their creative urge. Due to the attitude towards art as a product which serves as a mouthpiece for societal critique and reflection, the critical artist is rarely represented on the art market, but instead on exhibitions such as the Documenta. Labelling their pieces of art as sales products would only negate their notion of art. This scepticism is additionally illustrated in the artist’s attitude towards the professionalised art system and its institutions. Admittedly this sounds rather paradoxical given the fact that these institutions pave the way to reach out to the public. But it is exactly this interpretation and reflection by the media which the critical artists want to prevent. They aim at focusing on the whole process when the creative urge develops into an art piece. Here the centre of attention is not the artwork itself, but the process of reflection with the help of the creative process. Joint exhibitions with other artists are implemented to improve, or at least enable, generating an income. Nevertheless, waiving financial and institutional inclusion is more likely to be accepted than putting a limit to the creative process.

Conclusion This contribution aimed at shedding light onto the relation between artists’ motives for action and the art market and revealed that the guiding principles of artistic actions show that the art market does not necessarily represent the totality of today’s artworks. The main consequences on the non-representative picture of artists on the art market were summarised in section “Art’s Reduction to the Upper Segment of the Art Market”. It became obvious that art entails several potentials for society such as creativity, innovation and reflection. Although public exhibitions like the Documenta cater to art’s reflective function, artworks not represented on the art market can also fulfil those

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functions. The question therefore remains just how well artworks not represented on the art market can be characterised as being reflective. The professionalised art system is also affected by external influences. Alexander (2018), for example, refers to the entrepreneurial impact on the art system. She (ibid., 32) stresses that “[i]n addition to a focus on the marketable, arts institutions have moved from more elitist und scholarly aims to more populist and managerial ones, with more explicit agendas for inclusiveness and building audiences […] and more accountability through setting and meeting of targets and engaging in strategic and financial planning”. Additional aspects stemming from the non-representation of some artists on the art market as well as further thoughts are presented in the following. To start with the aspect of reception, an artwork which is brought to attention without any interpretation by gallerists, museum directors or leaders of art associations is perceived as “unprotected”. To what extend the recipient reacts to this perception without any “pre-­ interpretation” is quite interesting as the exhibited artwork might not be recognised as art at all. Howard S. Becker has drawn attention to existing conventions in “art worlds”, which are anticipated by the public (Becker 1997, 30). Accordingly, it is expected that art is exhibited in museums or galleries and not in unconventional places or exhibition rooms. This could lead to the impression that a visual artist’s success is only possible through his or her presentation on the (high-priced) art market. It is often assumed that participating on the art market is a precondition for an artist’s success. Other marketing strategies or fields of activity (such as consultants in companies) are not taken into consideration. This could lead to this field becoming less attractive for future artists. But a closer look at artists who do not strive for success on the art market—while still seeking feedback—reveals that art is also exhibited in unconventional places such as semi-public locations (e.g. libraries, medical practices or restaurants), public buildings (e.g. administrations or courts) and empty shop windows. Thus, the exhibition of their artworks takes place in the general art system. The general art system enables a low-­ threshold artistic reception. The broader public can access these exhibition places more easily than galleries or art fairs. By using alternative channels, artists make their art visible for many on the local level.

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However, there is a risk that reception might be limited, as mentioned before. Certainly, it has to be seen that artists who work with the guiding principles of a pragmatic artist sometimes avoid the public spotlight and do not aim to reach a greater audience or even the people on the local level. Thom (2017) finds evidence for this behaviour. In his research on the commercial motivation of artists he categorises and describes the so-­ called Bohemian Fine Artist who prefers to subsist on various jobs and any kind of financial benefits instead of successfully marketing or publishing his or her pieces of art (ibid., 5).13 Referring to the thesis that the art market is only an incomplete mirror of art, off-galleries raise awareness because they only aim at exhibiting artworks and reject the idea of profit-making. They do not adhere to strict conditions of access and offer a chance for artists and their audience to communicate. Artists whose priority is not to strive for the art market often engage in uncommon collaborations, for example, collaborating with companies. Sandberg (2016, 24) detected that some artists temporally engage in mini think tanks of large enterprises, contribute to a company’s corporate identity or are involved in human resources and organisational development processes. These artists are collaborating service providers who are not interested in a critical discussion with the economy. They are rather looking for synergies and want to exploit interdependencies (ibid., 26). But to what extent this also holds true for the artists who follow the guiding principles of critical artists remains questionable. In addition, there are other social spheres where cooperation with artists exists. Bertram (2017, 13) termed the expression art transfer to describe this phenomenon. Artistic thinking and acting are deliberately exploited while processes of artistic action are influenced by transdisciplinary entanglements at the same time. This contribution reveals the importance of the art market for the artist while also indicating that the art market does not offer a complete  It has to be considered that comparisons with other typologies can be problematic as the categorisation often follows different theoretical approaches. Thom (2017) distinguishes between four types of artists (“Amateur Artists”, “Bohemian Artists”, “Salaried Fine Art Employees”, and “Business Artists”) and demonstrates the role of art regarding the livelihood. 13

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overview of all of the actually created artworks. This can—among others—be traced back to the fact that an artist’s representation on the art market is closely related to his or her respective guiding principle. In order to be able to generate a more complete picture of art, it therefore might be worth considering shifting our focus to the general art system. This might very well allow us to get a deeper understanding of art’s role in today’s society, its formation, mediation and acquisition contexts.

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Feulner, Gabriele. 2010. Mythos Künstler. Konstruktionen und Dekonstruktionen in der deutschsprachigen Prosa des 20. Jahrhunderts. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag. Fleck, Robert. 2013. Das Kunstsystem im 21. Jahrhundert. Museen, Künstler, Sammler, Galeristen. Wien: Passagen-Verlag. Florida, Richard. 2002. The Rise of the Creative Class and How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books. ———. 2010. Reset. Frankfurt and New York: Campus. Göttlich, Udo, and Ronald Kurt. 2012. Einleitung. In Kreativität und Improvisation: Soziologische Positionen, ed. Udo Göttlich and Ronald Kurt, 9–15. Wiesbaden: Springer VS. Haak, Carroll. 2008. Wirtschaftliche und soziale Risiken auf den Arbeitsmärkten von Künstlern. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Horowitz, Noah. 2011. Art of the Deal. Contemporary Art in a Global Financial Market. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Kaiser, Franz Wilhelm, and Michael North. 2017. Die Geburt des Kunstmarktes: Rembrandt, Ruisdael, van Goyen und die Künstler des Goldenen Zeitalters. München: Hirmer Verlag. Kaesler, Dirk. 1995. Max Weber. Eine Einführung in Leben, Werk und Wirkung. Frankfurt a. M. and New York: Campus. Kluge, Susann. 1999. Empirisch begründete Typenbildung. Zur Konstruktion von Typen und Typologien in der qualitativen Sozialforschung. Opladen: Leske und Budrich. Krause, Diana E. 2013. Kreativität, Innovation, Entrepreneurship. Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler. Kuckartz, Udo. 2012. Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse: Methoden, Praxis, Computerunterstützung. Weinheim and Basel: Beltz Juventa. Latimer, Quinn, and Adam Szymczyk. 2017. Der Documenta 14 Reader. London and New York: Prestel Verlag. Lucie-Smith, Edward. 2009. Lives of the Great Modern Artist. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. Luhmann, Niklas. 1984. Soziale Systeme. Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. ———. 1995. Die Kunst der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. ———. 1996. Die Realität der Massenmedien. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. ———. 2008. Das Problem der Epochenbildung und die Evolutionstheorie. In Niklas Luhmann, Schriften zu Kunst und Literatur, ed. Niels Werber, 139–188. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp.

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Lutter, Mark. 2013. Strukturen ungleichen Erfolgs. Winner-Take-All-­ Konzentrationen und ihre sozialen Entstehungskontexte auf flexiblen Arbeitsmärkten. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 65 (4): 597–622. Mancoff, Debra N. 2010. 50 amerikanische Künstler, die man kennen sollte. München, Berlin, London, and New York: Prestel Verlag. McAndrew, Clare. 2010. An Introduction to Art and Finance. In Fine Art and High Finance: Expert Advice on the Economics of Ownership. Expert Advice on the Economics of Ownership, ed. Clare McAndrew, 1–30. New  York: Bloomberg. Mejstrik, Alexander, and Peter Melichar. 2006. Editorial Kunstmarkt. Österreichische Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaften 17 (2 & 3): 5–9. Mieg, Harald. 2003. Problematik und Probleme der Professionssoziologie. In Professionelle Leistung  – Professionelle Performance: Positionen der Professionssoziologie, ed. Harald Mieg and Michaela Pfadenhauer, 11–46. Konstanz: UVK Verl.-Gesellschaft. Müller-Jentsch. 2011. Die Kunst in der Gesellschaft. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Neckel, Sighard. 2008. Flucht nach vorn: Die Erfolgskultur der Marktgesellschaft. Frankfurt a. M.: Campus. Oberste-Hetbleck, Nadine. 2010. Kunst und Marketing. Selbstvermarktung von Künstlern der Düsseldorfer Malerschule und das Düsseldorfer Vermarktungssystem 1826–1869. Regensburg: Schnell + Steiner. O’Doherty, Brian. 1986. Inside the White Cube. The Ideology at the Gallery Space. Santa Monica: The Lapis Press. Rauterberg, Hanno. 2013. Ich, der Künstler: Eine Geschichte der Kunst, von Albrecht Dürer bis Ai Weiwei. Stuttgart: Belser. Reckwitz, Andreas. 2012. Die Erfindung der Kreativität. Zum Prozess gesellschaftlicher Ästhetisierung. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Reinecke, Julia. 2012. Street-Art: Eine Subkultur zwischen Kunst und Kommerz. Bielefeld: Transcript. Sandberg, Berit. 2016. Unternehmen und Künstler – Von der Koexistenz zur Kooperation. In Handbuch Kunst-Unternehmens-Kooperationen, ed. Carsten Baumgarth and Berit Sandberg, 21–48. Bielefeld: Transcript. Schwietring, Thomas. 2010. Kunstsoziologie. In Handbuch spezielle Soziologien, ed. Georg Kneer and Markus Schroer, 221–241. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag.

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Seegers, Ulli. 2014. Galerien und ihre Bedeutung im Kunstmarkt. In Handbuch Kunstmarkt. Akteure, Management und Vermittlung, ed. Adrea Hausmann, 135–150. Bielefeld: Transcript. Smudits, Alfred, Michael Parzer, Rainer Prokop, and Rosa Reitsamer. 2014. Kunstsoziologie. München: Oldenbourg Verlag. Sternberg, Robert J. 2006. Introduction. In The International Handbook of Creativity, ed. James C. Kaufmann and Robert J. Sternberg, 1–9. Cambridge u.a.: University Press. Stiegler, Bernd. 2015. Theorien der Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaften: Eine Einführung. Paderborn: Wilhelm Fink. Thom, Marco. 2017. Arts Entrepreneur or What Type of Fine Artist Am I? A Working Typology of Fine Artists by Professional Self-understandings and Commercial Motivations. London South Bank University. Abstract Working Paper. Thurn, Hans Peter. 1997. Kunst als Beruf. In Soziologie der Kunst. Produzenten, Vermittler und Rezipienten, ed. Jürgen Gerhards, 103–124. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Velthuis, Olav. 2005. Talking Prices. Symbolic Meanings of Prices on the Market for Contemporary Art. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. Warnke, Martin. 1996. Hofkünstler: Zur Vorgeschichte des modernen Künstlers. Köln: DuMont.

Online Resources https://www.artspace.com. Curart. 2017. Junge Kunst fördern. https://www.curart.de/pages/about_curart. Accessed 04.06.2018. http://www.eyestorm.com/Pages/EyeHome.aspx. Künstlersozialkasse. 2017. KSK in Zahlen. http://www.kuenstlersozialkasse.de/ service/ksk-in-zahlen.html. Accessed 04.06.2018. Welt. 2017. abc und Art Cologne planen neue Kunstmesse in Berlin. https:// www.welt.de/regionales/nrw/article163649153/abc-und-Art-Cologneplanen-neue-Kunstmesse-in-Berlin.html. Accessed 04.06.2018. Raddy, Nina. 2017. Bansky eröffnet ein Hotel in Bethlehem. Der Tagesspiegel. http://www.tagesspiegel.de/kultur/streetart-kuenstler-banksy-eroeffnet-einhotel-in-bethlehem/19480340.html. Accessed 04.06.2018.

Part III The Economy of Idiosyncrasy: Art Dealers and the Commodification of Individuality

7 When Market Promotes Individuality: Arts in Early Modern Japan from the Macrosociological Perspective Takemitsu Morikawa

In this chapter, I will investigate the relation between the arts and the market as viewed through the theory of sociocultural evolution by Niklas Luhmann. The art of ukiyo-e in early modern Japan, namely during the so-called Tokugawa period, will be used as a historical case study. It is widely recognised that in those days, the arts in Japan were considerably less oriented towards aristocratic patrons as sponsors, but more towards the market. This tendency can be ascertained especially with the world-­ famous ukiyo-e wood prints. If we follow the changes and developments in ukiyo-e, we are likely to observe the influence of the market as an institution for the universal inclusion of individuals into functional systems over a very long time, corresponding with the c. 250-year span of the Tokugawa period. For this purpose, firstly, I will present the model of sociocultural evolution by Niklas Luhmann. In this model, the development of communication technology plays an intermediary role between the co-evolution of T. Morikawa (*) Keio University, Tokyo, Japan e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Glauser et al. (eds.), The Sociology of Arts and Markets, Sociology of the Arts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39013-6_7

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the semantics, on the one hand, and of the societal structure, on the other. In order to clarify his difficult concept of semantics and its background in the intellectual history, in section “Semantics, Media, and Structure: The Mechanism of the Sociocultural Evolution” I will briefly refer to the cultural philosophy of Ernst Cassirer. Then, in section “Meaning of the Printing Techniques for the Sociocultural Evolution”, I will discuss the meaning of communication technology in general, and especially of the printing techniques, for the co-evolution of societal structure and semantics. In section “Background: Printing Technique and Publishing Business in Early Modern Japan”, I will point out that ukiyo-e was oriented towards the market, which implies that the art audience in general and the specific role it played for the modern art system emerged over time, and that their opinions had a growing influence on art production. In section “Individualisation in ukiyo-e Arts”, I will observe changes in the art of ukiyo-e with some famous, representative works as examples. Finally, in section “Conclusion”, I will sum up the effects of the market on the arts over long periods of time. Through the communication of arts beyond the borders of feudal status groups and those between political domains of feudal lords (han), the market made the participation of the wider population possible. We will observe an emblematic yet surprising example of individualisation and innovation in art works. That means a) technical progress, especially changes from mono colour printings to multi-colour printings, b) continuous emergence of new genres and c) increasing interest in the secular world and individuals.

 emantics, Media, and Structure: S The Mechanism of the Sociocultural Evolution Ever since Ernst Cassirer and his The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, the humanities and cultural philosophy have recognised that none of the human forms of expression—language, myth, art, and science—are simply (after-)images of reality, but autonomous symbolic systems produced by the human “mind” [or “spirit”; in German: Geist]. They exhibit their

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own structures, logics, regularities and dynamics to us. Symbolic systems produce symbolic signs or images, though the types of images in question here are not those “which reproduce a self-subsistent world of ‘things’; they are image-worlds whose principle and origin are to be sought in an autonomous creation of the mind. Through them alone we see what we call ‘reality’, and in them alone we possess it: for the highest objective truth that is accessible to the spirit is ultimately the form of its own activity” (Cassirer 1953, 111, 2001 [1923], 45f.).1 Representation of reality by symbols does not mean simple reproduction of the external reality, but rather “the expression of an ideal rule, which connects the present, given particular with the whole, and combines the two in an intellectual synthesis, then we have in “representation” no mere subsequent determination, but a constitutive condition of all experience. Without this apparent representation, there would also be no presentation, no immediately present content; for this latter only exists for knowledge in so far as it is brought into a system of relations, that give it spatial and temporal as well as conceptual determinateness” (Cassirer 2003, 284, 2000 [1910], 306). Media for representation—images, signs—play the role of the universal for each particular. For “the sign, in contrast to the actual flow of the particular contents of consciousness, has a definite ideal meaning, which endures as such. It is not, like the simple given sensation, an isolated particular, occurring but once, but persists as the representative of a totality, as an aggregate of potential contents, beside which it stands as a first ‘universal’” (Cassirer 1953, 89, 2001 [1923], 20). All cultures exist as a totality of symbolic systems and “all culture is manifested in the creation of specific image-worlds, of specific symbolic forms” (Cassirer 1953, 113, 2001 [1923], 49). Hence, the humanities (cultural sciences) broadly construed see it as their task “to understand and to show how every content of culture, in so far as it is more than a mere isolated content, in so far as it is grounded in a universal principle of form, presupposes an original act of the human spirit” (Cassirer 1953, 80, 2001 [1923], 9).  Because of the importance of his works, I always refer to Ernst Cassirer not only in English translation but also in the German originals. 1

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Cassirer anticipated here the modern constructivist understanding of the relationship between reality and media (media-reality), according to which media-reality is not a mechanism of reproduction but instead represents “an independent process of ‘reality construction’” (Keppler 2005, 95). Symbolic systems provide means of description and expression so that subjective experiences can be articulated in forms that can be shared and understood intersubjectively. Accordingly, they show us the limit to possibilities—to possible experiences, possible perspectives for observation and description and possible behavioural repertoires—at particular times and in particular places. Symbolic representation and social praxis stand in the relation of a hermeneutic circle. “It is only in the reciprocal movement between the ‘representing’ and the ‘represented’ that a knowledge of the ego and of objects, ideal as well as real, can arise” (Cassirer 1957, 203, 2002 [1929], 232). Later, following Cassirer’s argument, Gottfried Boehm’s theory of images describes this relationship of representation as follows: The realisation dawns that images are not that which many still believe them to be—something post facto that, when it comes down to it, one skims past reality without consequence like a mirror—but are instead a power capable of shaping our access to the world in advance and hence deciding the way in which we see it and, ultimately, what the world ‘is’. Someone who is able to see it differently is certainly as close to it as someone who changes their concepts. (Boehm 2007, 14)2

In sociology, Erving Goffman (1979, 1981) brought this relationship between symbolic representation in media and social practices back into the foreground, refocusing attention on symbols’ function of revealing and limiting future possibilities. Human forms of expression such as music, painting, theatre, cinema, TV dramas, comics—which I shall here refer to as “media for representation”—are not mere (after-)images of social reality; rather, these symbolic systems function as a template (a pre-­ image) and serve to reveal and limit future possibilities for everyday activity, offering orienting values. Media representation of behaviour draws  All quotes from works not published in English have been translated by me.

2

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persistently on a behavioural repertoire of figures present in practical consciousness on an everyday basis. Without prior knowledge of or prior access to the behavioural repertoire in representational media (semantics), no understanding of objectified cultures and of the behaviour of others would be possible. Fictional sentences like “God created the world in seven days” and “Odin built Valhalla” are comprehensible to readers despite lacking any counterpart in reality only because and insofar as readers are able to understand concepts like “create” and “build” as a behavioural repertoire. “This drawing on a repertoire of forms of behaviour that is available in everyday life is also necessary to guarantee the comprehension of external spectators” (Lenz 2006, 126). Media representation creates awareness of that which, although objectively possible beforehand—depending on the state of technical and practical knowledge which applies in the particular case—is not (yet) consciously regarded as possible by standard actors. The novel combinations of symbols must be tested in fictions and become evident and plausible in the eyes of the audience (cf. Luhmann 1997, 539, 548, 2012a, 326, 331). Works of art, broadly construed— including fictional narratives, films, TV dramas, comics, video games and so on—continue to be a suitable arena for conducting thought-­ experiments with respect to novel ideas. If the novel nexuses of ideas (semantics) acquire plausibility as templates for behaviour, they will be able to spread. Accordingly, ordinary conduct is “in a sense […] an imitation of the proprieties, a gesture at the exemplary forms, and the primal realisation of these ideals belongs more to make-believe than to reality” (Goffman 1986 [1974], 562, 2000 [1980], 604). Although Goffman (1986 [1974], 2000 [1980]) himself only worked on visual media such as film and photographs, his thesis also applies to all other media for representation. Media influence how people speak, dress, present themselves and act. While it is difficult to determine how an individual TV show or film influences an individual action, it can generally be said that fictional media for representation remain a key medium of enculturation (cf. Mai and Winter 2006b, 8). In the sense specified here, fictions also embody “the dreams of an era that are able to oppose the dominant ideology and in a certain respect deconstruct it” (Mai and Winter 2006b, 9; cf. also Luhmann 1997, 536ff., 2012a, 324ff.).

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Niklas Luhmann’s theory of semantics follows this tradition (Hahn 1981; Morikawa 2014, 2015, 2016). Its novelty lies in the fact that he combines the evolution of the symbolical nexus of representation that he calls “semantics”, on the one hand, and differentiations of society on the macro level, on the other.3 Social semantics cannot “be conceived of simply as a cause of socio-structural changes, but nor can it be conceived of simply as their effect”: it contributes in a far more complex fashion to the “evolutionary changes in the structure of society” (Luhmann 2008, 56f.). Following Reinhart Koselleck’s template for historical semantics (cf. 1972), Luhmann sees an emergent order of social change in knowledge itself and takes as his starting point the idea that the evolution of a semantics structures and differentiates social processes through changes in symbolical nexus. His semantic analysis (cf. Luhmann 1980, 1982, 1989, 1995, 1998) and theory of differentiation (Luhmann 1997, 609ff., 2012b, 10ff.) support each other. It is important to note here that the concept of semantics should not be limited to the meanings of words because meaning (Sinn) is defined independently of language in Luhmann’s theory. Meaning is defined as the unit of difference between possibilities and reality, or, to put it briefly, it is the nexus between possibilities and reality that is valid intersubjectively. As a result, it is possible to widen the concept of semantics in the direction of the inclusion of meaning in pictures and visuals, as Cornelia Bohn proposes with the concept of “visual semantics” (Bohn 2012, 2017).4 Luhmann (1980, 1982, 1989, 1995, 1998) studied the following related phenomena in the transition to a modern, functionally differentiated society. Firstly, he analysed the transition of societal differentiation from a segmentary form to a stratificatory one and then a functional one: in a pre-modern society with stratificatory differentiation, the key dimension of difference is above/below and society is structured hierarchically. In contrast, Luhmann characterises modern society as a functionally  Luhmann’s contribution here consists in linking the lifeworld structure to the socio-theoretical typology of differentiation, on the one hand, and the development of communication technology (dissemination media), on the other, thus showing that the model of a lifeworld with a clear religious centre has only limited validity. 4  In this sense of visual semantics, Luhmann’s concept of semantics comes near to the “noema” in the terminology of Husserl. Cf. Husserl 1992 (1913). 3

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differentiated society in which each functional system (politics, economy, science, law, the family, etc.) must fulfil its own task. Reinhart Koselleck’s “saddle period” hypothesis corresponds to the socio-theoretical model of society’s transition from stratificatory to functional differentiation (Koselleck 1972). Secondly, Luhmann studied the changes in the relationship between society and individuality, that is, the transition from inclusive to exclusive individuality, meaning that an individual in modern society is no longer totally included in a single subsystem such as a social status group, a village community, or the like; rather, inclusion cuts across the communications of different functional systems. In modernity, individuality as a unity can be produced by extra-societal means (Luhmann 1989, 158; Bohn 2006, 55f.). In this chapter, I will show that this kind of “qualitative individualism” (Simmel 1995 [1901]) emerged in the cultural and art history in early modern Japan.

 eaning of the Printing Techniques M for the Sociocultural Evolution Within this theoretical framework, the technical development of dissemination media plays a transmitting role between the evolution of semantics and the evolution of societal differentiation. The introduction of writing, the spread of printing and the invention of new dissemination media up to and including the most recent form, the Internet, have always led to upheavals in society. According to Luhmann, a trend can be identified in the evolution of dissemination media—from the invention of writing up to modern electronic media (Luhmann 1997, 312, 2012a, 206; cf. also Giddens 1996, 85, 100). In other words, the technical development of dissemination media contributes to the formation of a functionally differentiated society. There are two general tendencies to be seen for the evolution of society with the development of communication and media techniques. The first one is the transformation of the societal order. The more the communication and media techniques develop, the more the societal order changes from hierarchical to functional and horizontal orders. The implementation of book printing and the book market in the

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early modern age prepared the emergence of the modern society. Secondarily, it has increasingly overcome spatial distances and societal barriers. The old borders between segmentary units like clans, tribes, or kinships and stratificatory units like status groups lose their meanings. Book printing contributed to the decline of such old authorities as religion and politics in the production and distribution of knowledge. After the translation of the Bible and its subsequent distribution, the Catholic Church lost its monopolised power of the interpretation of the Bible and its intellectual dominance. Political and religious authorities were not able to censor all publications. A similar cat-and-mouse game between the political authorities on the one side and authors and publishers on the other was to be seen in the Japanese early modern age (from c. 1600 until 1867) as a whole (Kornicki 1998, 324–352; Suwa 1978, 149 f.; for a comparison with early modern France, cf. Smith 1994, 344 ff.) After the implementation of book printing and of a book market, the script and the book were no longer the expression of the holy eternal order created by God that the people should study repeatedly and intensively. With the increasing occurrence of book publishing (and increasing information), on the one hand, and the increased free time caused by enhanced productivity, on the other hand, the custom of reading changed from intensive to extensive reading. More and more people read new publications only once and read the same books less repeatedly. Moreover, the existence of the book market accelerates individualisation in knowledge production and distribution in a double sense: firstly, in the acquisition of knowledge, and secondly, a divergence is now attributed to individuals as innovation. If something is well known, but someone doesn’t know that his ignorance is attributable to himself, it means that he has not read enough, and that he lacks an education (Luhmann 1997, 297–298, 2012a, 177–178). The divergence in the text that can be interpreted now not as a violation but as an innovation is attributed to an individual author or an individual group of authors. Authors should be innovative and unique in order to attract the attention of the audience and to survive in the tough competition. In order to be read, texts must be “interesting”. The book market increases the power of the audience. In Europe, the Earl of Shaftesbury pointed out in the late eighteenth

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century: “In our Days the Audience makes the Poet; and the Bookseller the Author” (Shaftesbury 1773, 264; capitals in the original). The form in which a text will be written and sold depends on the opinions and tastes of the audience, which are subject to change. It follows that the market pulls them towards continuous innovation because of the enforced mechanism towards continuous distinction (Bourdieu 1984 [1979]). Fictional writings like novels and poetry belong to the arts in the wider sense. They obviously follow the mechanism of the market and media as sketched earlier. In this chapter, I assume that the same mechanism exists between other kinds of artists and art markets as that between book authors and market.

 ackground: Printing Technique B and Publishing Business in Early Modern Japan In this section, I refer to the development of printing techniques and the publishing business in early modern Japan.5 In a theoretical sense, their development is important in the transition to the modern functionally differentiated society and the emergence of the autonomous function systems, including the art system. Drawing on the historical context of ukiyo-e art in early modern Japan, I point out, firstly, that some types of ukiyo-e printing emerged as illustrations for popular writings, like so-­ called ukiyo-zôshi, as well as later kibyôshi, ninjôbon, and others. Secondly, ukiyo-e and popular books were enabled by the development of the same techniques of publishing. Thirdly, the audience for ukiyo-e printing almost completely matched the readers of the popular writings of the same time. Finally, it was publishers who promoted and sold ukiyo-e prints. Publishers and their networks mediated between art and artists’

 In English, Kornicki (1998) provides an overview of the cultural-historical background of the book and publishing sector in pre-modern Japan. A juxtaposition of publishing and reading habits in Japan and the French Ancien régime can be found in Smith (1994). For the situation of historical media research from the early modern period to the twentieth century in Japan, also see Kanro (2005) and further literature. In English, Moriya (1990) provides a good overview of the information network in early modern Japan. 5

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workshops on the one side and the audience on the other side and connected them. Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s6 failed conquering expedition against Korea from 1592 to 1598 (Imjin War) brought the Japanese into contact with the new book printing technique (cf. Konta 2009 [1977], 12–13).7 With the help of the new typography techniques from Korea, the Japanese made print versions of a variety of traditional texts from poetry and prose texts to Buddhist and Confucian writings. Until the middle of the seventeenth century, however, printed books sold exclusively within the narrow circle of samurai, court aristocracy (kuge), priests, doctors and merchants. In general, each edition reached a maximum of 100 copies. A market-­oriented publishing business emerged in Japan for the first time in Kyoto8 during the Kan´ei years (1624–1644).9 At that time, printing, publishing and distribution activities were typically combined in a single house (cf. Suzuki 1980, 44; Suwa 1978, 51f.). From a cultural-historical point of view, two highlights are particularly striking in the Edo period; the first occurred in the second half of the seventeenth century (especially between 1688 and 1704), while the second cultural-historical peak took place in the first half of the nineteenth century until about 1840. The two epochs are referred to in regnal years as the Genroku era and Bunka/Bunsei era (often abbreviated as the Kasei era). The permanent establishment of such a publishing business occurred in the Genroku era (1688–1704) (cf. Suzuki 1980a, 119). Simultaneously with the establishment of the publishing houses, reading for entertainment purposes (extensive reading) gradually prevailed (Nagatomo 1982, 167–168; Nagatomo 2010). A book catalogue that gives an overview of all printing works was first published in Japan in 1666. It was aimed at publishers, carried 2589 titles and can be seen as evidence for the commercialisation of literature in progress. The total number of titles increased in the following years to  Japanese names are written in the original order (first family name, then given name) in this chapter. 7  For this cf. Turnbull (2002). 8  Until the seventeenth century, Kyoto was considered as Japan’s cultural centre (cf. Moriya 1990, 114f.). 9  Almost simultaneously, Jesuits began to print Japanese texts and other texts using the typographic technique. The corresponding scriptures are called kirishitan ban. Cf. Kornicki (1998, 125ff.). 6

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3866 titles in 1670 and 5934 titles in 1685. In the catalogue-edition of 1692 the number of registered works was already 7181 (cf. Nagatomo 1982, 10).10 The printing press, which was limited to typography, was practised until the 1620s, and then it was replaced by woodblock printing around 1626 (cf. Konta 2009 [1977], 35). This alleged technical regression is due to the increase in printed circulation and the resulting market pressure. Publishers had to be able to react more flexibly to the demand of the reading public and, if necessary, to put further editions of a popular text into print in a timely manner. Due to the peculiarities of the Japanese writing system, the use of wooden panels proved to be more practical than the ever-new typographic composition of the texts. Konta (2009 [1977]) identifies the following text genres, which can be assigned to favourite book titles that went to press during the Kan’ei years (1624–1644)11: (1) Buddhist texts, including their commentaries (the printing of these texts, which had previously been carried out in temples, was now taken over by secular publishers who sold the texts commercially—this example shows how the dissemination of religious content gradually slipped from religious authority); (2) classic Japanese prose and poetry collections12; (3) classical Chinese literature, which includes not only the older and newer Confucian texts such as Four Books and Five Classics, but also chronologies and fiction on Chinese history as well as works of practical knowledge like medical, administrative, arithmetic, and astronomical books. Customers of these three genres were mainly the well-educated “upper classes”. In addition, classical literature, for which no authors’ fees accrued, was one of the major sources of revenue for the  Smith assumes an average of 1000 new titles a year just before the Meiji Restoration. By comparison, in France, just before the outbreak of the revolution, there were about 1500 new titles a year (cf. Smith 1994, 335f.). 11  Also see Nagatomo (2010). 12  For this, the Genji Monogatari (History of Prince Genji), which was created at the beginning of the eleventh century, can be cited in a representative manner. Further examples of this genre are Tsurezuregusa (essays, written in the fourteenth century), Heike Monogatari (history of the war between two clans towards the end of the twelfth century, written in the thirteenth century), Taiheiki (history of the fall of the first and the founding of the second Shôgunate and the intervening civil war, written in the fourteenth century), Ise Monogatari (narratives and poems of poets Ariwara no Narihira, originated around the middle of the tenth century) and Yamato Monogatari (collection of narratives and poems, written in the middle of the tenth century). 10

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publishers (cf. May 1992, 25). Two other genres are (4) dramas and narratives that popularise Buddhist teachings (kojôrui and sekkyô seibon) and (5) a new form of entertainment literature, kanazôshi, which helped to increase the popularity of leisure-time reading and thus effectively helped to cope with increasing leisure contingency.13 Works of this genre were not addressed to the upper classes, but to the commoners with a much lower educational level. The writing system of the Japanese language consists of two different systems: logograms (kanji) borrowed from the Chinese and Japanese original syllabary (hiragana and katakana). Kanazôshi writings forewent logogram either completely or made sparing use of this system to make the content more accessible to people with lower educational attainment. In this way, the new genre contributed to the popularisation of new, extensive reading habits and the emergence of the reading society. Their contents covered a wide range, from essays to fictional writings and travel descriptions. From 1652 to 1673, 223 kanazôshi books were published (cf. Konta 2009 [1977], 41). But still, not enough profit could be made. Konta points out that no publisher could live only from the sale of kanazôshi writings (cf. Konta 2009 [1977], 42f.). Only the emergence of the genre of ukiyo zôshi enabled the entertainment literature to reach economic breakthrough.14 Another major source of revenue for publishers was the subgenre of guidebook literature, often found under the name chôhôki.15 It provided knowledge about practical everyday life and ritual acts as well as moral usage and virtuous behaviour. This example shows that at that time the mediation and reproduction of social knowledge took place more and more in the form of written rather than verbal communication (cf. Bohn 2006, 127–158). Communication no longer required the physical presence of the participants in the conversation. Thus, social communication  For kanazôshi, cf. May (1974). For a detailed overview of the literary genres of the Edo period, cf. Keene (1976) and May (1995). 14  The genre-establishing text is Kōshoku ichidai otoko. Already within the first 20 years after the publication of this influential text 200 titles—so-called kôshoku mono—were published, which belong to the genre of ukiyo zôshi (cf. Konta 2009 [1977], 67). 15  Cf., e.g., Sôden (1993); May (1992, 24); Nagatomo (2010, 144 f ). For the modernity of the genre of advisory literature, cf. Heimerdinger (2008) and Messerli (2010). 13

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overcame the limits of any segmentary and stratificatory subsystems. Ronald Dore (1992 [1965], 296) summarises this situation: “Citizens of Edo could read novels written in Osaka; they might even occasionally receive letters from distant cousins in far-off rural areas.”16 The spread of the custom of extensive reading was helped by commercial book lenders. Networks of publishers and commercial book lenders mediated between audiences and authors. Critiques and opinions of the audiences were fed back to authors. We can regard this circuit via a functioning book market as a reflective mechanism of the society. With the feedback mechanism, some publishers led and promoted arts, culture and science in early modern Japan. A famous example of a culture-­ promoting publisher was Tsutaya Jûzaburô (1750–1797).17 He established his company with Yoshiwara saiken (guidebook for the pleasure-district in Edo-Yoshiwara) and dramas with Tomimoto songs that were in vogue (cf. Kuramoto 1997, 36f.; Konta 2009 [1977], 142–143). With a new genre of entertainment literature, kibyôshi, often with a politically satirical slant, he promoted entertainment literature too. Examples include Bunbu nidô mangoku tôshi (1788) by Hôseidô Kisanji (1734–1813) and Ômugaeshi bunbu no futamich (1789) by Koikawa Harumachi (1744–1798). The latter published also kyôka (“crazy poems”) in a new repertoire in poetry. Kyôka emerged as a new genre of parodic poetry and language play, which had enjoyed popularity since the mid-eighteenth century and was characterised by satirical elements and an ironic sense of humour. Tsutaya used to organise several salons that served as meeting places for writers, poets, artisans and artists (painters).18 This circle included such famous writers and poets as Santô Kyôden (1761–1816), Koikawa Harumachi (1744–1789), Ôta Nanpo (1749–1823, also known as Yomo no Akara or Shoku Sanjin) and—not to forget—Juppensha Ikku (1765–1831). However, Tsutaya’s greatest  This change in the form of communication is also reflected in the advent of ôrai mono—sample letters for various practical purposes (cf. Nagatomo 2010, 132f.). 17  For further examples, cf. Kornicki (1998), 207ff; Tsuji (1980 [1915]), 256f., 280f. 18  Those days, a number of salons and clubs were organised for intellectuals, writers, poets, artists and so on beyond the borders between status groups and feudal states inside of Japan. A famous salon of intellectuals was held by Kimura Kenkadô (1736–1802) in Ôsaka (Nakamura 2000). There were publishing houses for academic and scientific books such as the Suharaya group (Konta 2009, 120–136). 16

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achievement in Japanese cultural and art history was the promotion and publication of ukiyo-e prints by Kitagawa Utamaro (1753–1806) and Tôshûsai Sharaku, whom I will mention in the next section.

Individualisation in ukiyo-e Arts In the following I will show four representative pictures of ukiyo-e print graphics. As I wrote in the last section, the Genroku-era is the first peak of the cultural development in early modern Japan. The genre ukiyo-e emerged at that time. The word ukiyo has its origins in the Buddhist context. Until the sixteenth century, the word was given the kanji characters「憂 き 世」 and referred to this worldly and suffering world, which faces the afterlife as a paradise freed from suffering. This meaning can be traced back to the twelfth century. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the word experienced a positive change and became secularised. It has been marked with kanji characters「浮世」. Usually translated as “floating world”, ukiyo points out that the order and “to be so” of reality do not exist forever in this world. The change of connotation in the concept shows that the citizens of Edo were more and more conscious of the contingency of the world at that time. In addition to that, the word ukiyo expressed—in contrast to that of earlier times—the temporality of the present. Other idioms are associated with ukiyo: Ukiyo-uta meant “songs in vogue”, ukiyo-odori meant the “modish dance” and ukiyo-dôfu referred to a new kind of tôfu that was sold as a product on the market. At last, ukiyo-e originally had the meaning “pictures of the contemporaries”. Hishikawa Moronobu’s (1618–1694) “After a Tune” 「低唱の後」 ( ) is a good example of the early works in the genre. Moronobu, famous for “Mikaeri bijin”, is recognised as a founder of the genre ukiyo-e. His “After a Tune” (Fig. 7.1) was originally an illustration for a book. The flushed cheeks of the figures indicate their act, and an instrument like a guitar symbolised their rendezvous. However, the figures play only a typified role in a patterned situation. We find little sign of the individuality of figures (Fig. 7.2). Over the course of time, artists became more and more interested in the real world and the people there, especially townspeople. They focused

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Fig. 7.1  Hishikawa, Moronobu. “After a Tune” (「低唱の後」), ca. 1673–81, in the collection of Keio University Libraries

increasingly on unique incidents and persons, not patterned situations. O-Sen was a favourite model for painters and graphic artists in the 1760s. A painting by Suzuki Harunobu (c. 1725–1770) (“Tea-stall of Osen”: pic. 2) is a representative example showing her. The greatest and most innovative merit by Harunobu lies in the fact that he introduced multicolour publishing to ukiyo-e art. This new technique won a great acceptance by the audience of those days and drove out the familiar black and white format. Illustrators and painters signed or stamped their name on their work for the authorisation. However, we can see not only the name of the illustrators but also the name of the models, which is evidence for the increasing interest in unique individuals and their individuality (Fig. 7.3). The general tendency is quite clear: in the later works, we can see a greater interest in individuality. From the end of the eighteenth century

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Fig. 7.2  Suzuki, Harunobu. “Tea-stall of O-Sen” (「おせん茶屋」), ca. 1764–1772, in the collection of Tobacco and Salt Museum in Tokyo

into the beginning of the so-called Kasei-era, the interest in individuality was enforced. This tendency is also visible in the facial expressions of the figures which increasingly show individual features and internal emotional moves. Today, Kitagawa Utamaro (1753–1806) is recognised as the representative artist not only for the Kasei-era but also for ukiyo-e sui generis. He was one of the painters promoted by Tsutaya mentioned earlier. His work “Eight Views of Famous Teahouse Beauties: The Beauty Okita Looking into a Mirror” (「名所腰掛八景 鏡」 ca. 1800–1806) is

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Fig. 7.3  Kitagawa, Utamaro. “Eight Views of Famous Teahouse Beauties: The Beauty Okita Looking into a Mirror” 「 ( 名所腰掛八景 鏡」), ca. 1800–1806, in the collection of Keio University Libraries

a good example of this development of increasing interest in individuality (pic. 3). In the print, Okita is looking into her hand mirror. The audience can ask themselves what she is thinking or what is bothering her. Not only famous young girls but also actors of Kabuki Theatre were beloved motifs in those days. The exaggerated individual personality was to be seen especially in works by Tôshûsai Sharaku19 (Fig. 7.4). His pictures were promoted by the publisher Tsutaya.

 Here without life data. For as is well known, Sharaku was an anonymous painter, and scholars can only guess who he really was until now. 19

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Fig. 7.4  Tôshû-sai Sharaku. “The Actor Ôtani Oniji as Edobei” (「三代目大谷鬼次 の江戸兵衛」), 1794, in the collection of Tokyo National Museum

Conclusion How can the market have an effect on the arts over the long run? The secularisation of art is uncontroversial as an observation. With the example of changes in ukiyo-e art during the early modern period of Japan that lasted for 250 years, we can conclude that it evokes not only technical innovation but also individualisation. The latter is to be understood in a double sense: individualisation of artists and greater interest in individual personalities as motifs for art.

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The arrival of the printing technique and emergence of a market for books and printed pictures enabled the participation of the wider population in the communication on arts beyond the barriers of status groups and old, locational geographical as well as political borders between the territories of feudal lords.20 These conditions contributed to the emergence of the “art audience” as a social role for a modern functional system of arts and a feedback mechanism from the audience to the artists.21 Because the publishers were oriented to the market at that time, the artists were compelled to react to the critiques, opinions and changing tastes of the audience as swiftly as possible to survive in the established market. They had to distinguish themselves from others and continuously make themselves more visible in the market competition. They had always to make innovations—either in technique or in aesthetics—otherwise they would be labelled “boring”, which meant the death sentence for the artists. Here we can see the emergence of the functional system of art that operates according to its own code of “innovative/boring” (Plumpe and Werber 1993, 30ff.; Luhmann 2000). Faced with the competition for distinction and survival on the market, it was only a question of time that the artists would discover the “inside” of individuals as an unlimited rich source insofar as it is considered to be non-­transparent and unlimitedly various. This process of individualisation—of increasing interest in individual personalities (Einzigartigkeit des Individuums)—also took place in central Europe, especially in the age of romanticism with the transition of societies towards functional differentiation (Luhmann 1982, 1989, 1997, 1998, 2012a, 2012b). However, we can assume a similar emergence process of “qualitative individualism” (Simmel) may have occurred in early modern Japan insofar as we have looked back at the history and the socio-­ structural conditions of ukiyo-e paintings.

 See in the central European context Wittmann (2011).  It is worth noting here that the coloured pictures of ukiyo-e by wood printing were cheap enough so that commoners could enjoy them. The price of a colour print picture was only 20 mon, little more than a bowl of noodle soup which cost 16 mon.

20 21

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8 The Art Market Facing New Connoisseurship: The Reception of Pieter Brueghel the Younger at Auction Anne-Sophie Radermecker

Introduction Over the past decades, the market for European Old Master Paintings1 has experienced significant shifts caused by the globalisation of the art trade,2 and major advances in art history (McAndrew 2016). Corollary to the art market boom that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s (Wood 1997), the development of the so-called “new connoisseurship”, based on the use of scientific technologies to authenticate old paintings, has led to an  Artists born before 1821 or 1875, depending on auction glossaries.  According to Velthuis (2015), the globalisation of the art trade has been caused by the appearance of new buyers from countries like China and Russia developing an interest in art, both old and new, and emerging countries entering the art market. The author also points out that diversification in terms of artistic production and buyers’ behaviours are the main consequences of this process. 1 2

A.-S. Radermecker (*) Université Libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s) 2020 A. Glauser et al. (eds.), The Sociology of Arts and Markets, Sociology of the Arts, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39013-6_8

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in-depth reassessment of a traditional connoisseurship––for which the authentication process mainly consists in giving names to anonymous paintings (Alpers 1988, 2)––and a better understanding of the inner workings of artists’ studios as collective enterprises. More importantly, new connoisseurship has significantly challenged the view that art historians long had on authorship,3 and the belief that each painting is necessarily executed by one single hand (e.g. Van de Wetering 1992; Guichard 2010; Tummers 2011). New connoisseurship now assumes that the search for the artist’s hand is virtually anachronistic, especially for sixteenth- and seventeenth-century paintings, and that large-scale production prevents scholars from concluding on one definitive name. As a consequence, greater attention has been paid by scholars and academics to non-autograph paintings, and workshop outputs in particular (e.g. Faries 2006; Ainsworth 2017), whose artistic interest has since been acknowledged by the scientific field, despite the fact that the identity of the author remains unknown. As gatekeepers of the art market, and key intermediaries between the supply (sellers) and demand (buyers) sides, auction houses are particularly concerned with authenticity issues,4 especially because the market value of art is strongly determined by authorship (Friedländer 1942, 180; Grampp 1989; Onofri 2009; Renneboog and Spaenjers 2013). Salesrooms have to deal with thousands of works of art that need to be authenticated before being auctioned, in order to avoid financial and legal damages (Bandle 2016). Facing these new scientific and economic conditions, salesrooms had to adapt their policies to reduce information asymmetry and to uphold their reputation, especially since price indexes and easy access to scholarly information have made the public more knowledgeable, and art experts are more inclined to travel across the world to authenticate pieces of art (Hope 2005, 207). In the light of these mutations, it is reasonable to wonder whether or not the epistemic shift that occurred in the academic field has affected the art market. According to a  According to Cambridge Dictionary, ‘authenticity’ and ‘authorship’ are defined as “the quality of being real or true”, “the state of fact of being the person who wrote a particular book, article, play”. Cf. Cambridge Dictionary [online: https://dictionary.cambridge.org). Page accessed on 7 July 2018. 4  Auction houses, or salesrooms, are companies that run auctions. Many of them are specialised in the sales of artworks. 3

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Bourdieusian perspective, the segment of old masters is at the crossroad of two subfields related to the art field in the broader sense, namely, ­academia and the art market (Bourdieu 1992, 1994). Although each of them has its own finality––the study and the sale of art, respectively–– both subfields share common interests in the works of art. From a sociological point of view, the close connections that link both the scientific field (art historians, scholars, academics, experts, curators, scientists, restorers) and the art market (buyers, sellers, salesrooms, dealers) have been investigated by Moulin (1992), who argues that scholars proceed to the legitimation of art, while actors of the market play a crucial role in the revision of cultural values and buyers’ preferences. Reciprocal interactions between these actors are thus necessary to contribute to the renewal of artistic values. Interestingly, concrete evidence of these interactions can be detected in the promotional discourse of major salesrooms. This is notably the case of Christie’s that explicitly claims its academic positioning on its online website: Christie’s beautifully illustrated, in-depth and scholarly catalogues provide comprehensive and meticulously researched information, indispensable to both new and established collectors. Christie’s prides itself on producing the most academic and visually stimulating catalogues in the auction business, and we invite you to explore these publications.5 In the light of this statement, and since new connoisseurship can be viewed as an intellectual emancipation from a nineteenth-century vision of the artist as an individual genius, the natural assumption is that the art market has been responsive to this new scholarship. Because of the strong interactions that occur between academia and the art market, we may expect that salesrooms have acknowledged the artistic merit and market potential of non-autograph works such as copies and studio outputs, and are now more inclined to value and promote these art pieces, long considered secondary. Such a behaviour would be in accordance with their academic ambitions, and this assumption is relevant from a market point of view, since Milgrom and Webber (1982) affirm that auction houses   Source: [en ligne] http://catalogues.christies.com/christies-shop/ProductList.aspx?sId=28. (Accessed online on 23 October 2017). 5

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need to provide reliable information to buyers in order to make profit. It is, however, necessary to stress that the aim of this chapter is not to argue in favour of a causal effect; both the academic field and the art market are indeed autonomous fields of struggle that cannot be directly and totally influenced by exogenous factors. However, the symbolic struggles between actors over considerations from peripheral fields––such as the value given to authorship––are questionable and analysable. In other words, we seek to analyse the ability of salesrooms to adjust their positioning to academic advances, and create new market behaviours that may be revealing of new perception of early modern art. The detection of such behaviours is made possible since views on art are usually shared by a large community of people, as a consequence of social conformism in a particular historical setting (Fehr and Hoff 2011). To explore this issue, prices are considered as indicators of consumers’ preferences (Reitlinger 1961), following the assumption that individual preferences are shaped by social interactions, and expressed in the monetary valuation of art for sale (Lyna 2012, 68). The current study focuses on the market reception of Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s paintings at auction,6 which offers a relevant analytical framework. Pieter Brueghel the Younger (c. 1564–1637/38) is indeed known for his extensive work made of copies after his renowned father Pieter Bruegel (1525/30–1569), before being himself copied by anonymous followers. In the third-­quarter of the sixteenth century, the master launched his own workshop and initiated a new system of labour division in order to meet the increasing demand for Brueghelian pictures and to compensate for the scarcity of original paintings by his father. One consequence of this innovative system of standardisation, commodification, and economisation of art is that a great deal of pictures of variable quality––directly or indirectly related to his name through various attribution qualifiers––are still traded on regular basis. Through a specific case study, the chapter brings new empirical evidence about how auction houses and purchasers perceive and deal with the key notion of authorship. While scholars are increasingly questioning the involvement of early modern masters in their own  Unlike art dealers, salesrooms publicly provide auction results, which can be used as empirical data. 6

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works, I find evidence that salesrooms continue to feed the need for autograph paintings. By focusing on the artist’s name and his most p ­ rototypical compositions, salerooms maintain the public in a relatively outdated system of thoughts that reinforces information asymmetry and implicitly determines the purchaser’s buying decision. The chapter is organised as follows. Section “Attributing Early Flemish Painting: From Traditional Connoisseurship to New Connoisseurship” briefly traces back the evolution of connoisseurship throughout the twentieth century, with a special focus on Flemish masters, and Pieter Brueghel the Younger in particular. Section “Methodology” brings some necessary elements of methodology to investigate both the supply and demand sides of the market for Brueghel’s paintings. In section “Empirical Results and Discussion”, empirical results are discussed. We first focus on the supply side and discourse strategies employed by salesrooms to promote authorship. Second, we examine the demand side by analysing the buyers’ willingness to pay for autograph and non-autograph paintings, in applying a hedonic regression analysis on a data set containing 733 auction transactions to capture the value conferred to each attribution qualifier. Conclusions are drawn in the last section.

 ttributing Early Flemish Painting: A From Traditional Connoisseurship to New Connoisseurship By definition, connoisseurship is the ability to ascribe anonymous pictures to a name, in identifying the master’s own stylistic characteristics (O’Connor 2004; Brainerd 2007). Traditional connoisseurship is mainly based on the eye’s experience and a long-time acquaintance with paintings of one or several artists. More specifically, the expert’s modus operandi relies on comparative iconographic, stylistic and material analyses that allow to characterise the artist’s individual maniera. Among these three comparative methods, stylistic evidence––resulting from the critics of style––is considered the most determinant factor in the authentication process (Jahn 1943; Fincham 2017).

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Art connoisseurship finds its origins in the late eighteenth century, before gaining legitimacy and becoming an autonomous science in the nineteenth century, under the leadership of Giovanni Morelli (Tummers 2011, 23–69). Autography rapidly became a crucial issue in the art world, since giving names to anonymous, and often unsigned, paintings was already an elementary prerequisite to conduct scientific research. The increasing importance given by connoisseurs to the artist’s name, corollary to the advent of the Romantic movement, largely contributed to shaping the stereotype of the Saturnian artist as an individual genius, whose virtue materialises in his artistic gesture. It is specifically in the first half of the twentieth century that traditional connoisseurship reached its climax, due to the activity of great experts, such as Bernard Berenson (1865–1959), and the intense practice of attributing paintings. Knowledge of early Flemish art would have never taken such magnitude without the role played by connoisseur Max Jakob Friedländer (1867–1958) who authenticated, for the first time, hundreds of paintings executed by Flemish masters. The publication of his fourteen-­ volume book Die Altniederländische Malerei (1924–1937), richly documented and illustrated for comparison purposes, durably affected the art world, and the foundations laid by the expert have allowed the next generations of art historians to carry on his legacy and critically reinterpret his work in the light of new art history research. Traditional connoisseurship was progressively reconsidered after new scientific technologies have gradually been applied to the study of paintings. X-ray and infrared photography, as well as dendrochronological and pigment analyses, have notably improved the authentication process, with greater attention paid to underdrawings and minor stylistic characteristics that make the idiom of every artist unique. These scientific tools have also led to a better understanding of the copying process and workshop labour division, with two major consequences. On the one hand, attributions have become more accurate and reliable but, on the other hand, a lot of presumed genuine paintings have been reattributed and assigned to assistants or followers, with financial and symbolic damages for the owners (Ainsworth 2005). In 1968, the Rembrandt Research Project (RRP)––a new connoisseurship-oriented project—was conducted to reassess the extensive body of works attributed to the Dutch master and differentiate genuine from non-genuine pictures, with the help of

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scientific technologies (Talley 1989; Grasman 1999; Liedtke 2004; Van de Wetering 2008). Since then, the workshop inner-workings of several southern and northern artists have been subject to similar research (e.g. Leeflang 2004/05; Faries 2006). In this revisionist context, Pieter Brueghel the Younger was no exception, and his whole work was recently subject to an in-depth reassessment. In 2000, Klaus Ertz, a German independent art historian and expert, published the first catalogue raisonné entirely dedicated to the artist. Based on a traditional connoisseurship approach, the two-volume book records more than 1500 pictures and provides new attributions sorted in three distinct categories: “autograph” (Echt), “doubtful” (Fraglich) and “rejected” (Abzuschreiben) pictures (see Ertz 1998/2000). A couple of years later, an international research project dedicated to the Brueghel family and based on a new connoisseurship approach was launched by two art historians specialised in the scientific examination of paintings. The aim of this project was to reconsider the creative process of Pieter Bruegel the Elder through the copying practices of the Younger, and eventually re-examine the work of the father, in the light of his son’s copies (Currie and Allart 2012). Based on several in-­ depth case studies, this major contribution insists on the complexity of the authentication process and provides appropriate methods to accurately attribute paintings in the twenty-first century. Long disregarded by scholarship, copies are now in the limelight of art historians who have acknowledged their artistic and historical importance. In this respect, several scholars (Gombert and Martens 2007; Henderiks 2016) strongly encourage the academic field to keep taking a critical view of autography, especially when dealing with early Flemish masters. Christie’s and Sotheby’s first obvious attempt to conform to new connoisseurship in the late 1970s is the use of a new system of attribution, no longer based on names,7 but on a scale of authenticity made of seven  Christie’s and Sotheby’s used to employ a specific attribution system, based on the name of the artist. When the last name of the artist was only mentioned in the note (e.g. RUBENS), the work was, in their opinion, executed by a member of the school of the artist, by one of his followers or in his style. When the initial of the first name was followed by the last name (e.g. P.-P. RUBENS), then the work was of the period of the artist and may be in whole or in part the work of the artist. When the note mentioned both names (PETER PAUL RUBENS), then the work was executed by the artist himself. Cf. unpublished document consulted at Christie’s archive (London, July 2017). We are grateful to Lynda McLeod for sharing this document. 7

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attribution qualifiers, for which authenticity is gradually decreasing. Although the meaning of each attribution can slightly differ from one auction glossary to another, they can be summarised as follows8: “By”:

a lot without specific attribution qualifier is, in their opinion, a work by the artist; “Attributed to”: probably a work by the artist in whole or in part but with less certainty; “Studio/workshop of ”: a work executed by an unknown hand in the studio of the artist that may or may not have been executed under the artist’s direction; “Circle of ”: a work by an as yet unidentified but distinct hand, closely associated with the named artist but not necessarily his pupil; “Follower of ”: a work by a painter working in the artist’s style, contemporary or nearly contemporary but not necessarily his pupil; “Manner of ”: concerns work executed in the style of the artist but of a later date; “After”: a copy of any date of a work of the artist This sophisticated scale of authenticity aims at better informing purchasers about the proper nature of the goods put up for sale, and the actual involvement of the master in the works related to his name to provide more qualified attributions. “By” theoretically implies that the picture was executed by the hand of the artist himself, while the six other qualifiers presumably cast doubt on autography or reject this hypothesis. “Attributed to” suggests that there is still a slight uncertainty about the author, while “studio of ” and “circle of ” only guarantee a contemporaneity with the master’s period of activity. “Follower of ” and “manner of ” refer to later pictures with no historical links. “Copies after”, without any specification, can be included in the two last categories.

 Detailed information is available in the glossaries provided by Christie’s and Sotheby’s in their sales catalogues dedicated to Old Masters Pictures. 8

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In is worth noting that these sophisticated identification strategies can also be put into perspective with the new marketing positioning adopted by major salerooms in the 1980s, that is mainly reflected in the improvement of sales catalogues, in terms of formal characteristics and content. From short, narrative and descriptive notes, the content of sales catalogues, as marketing tools, has slipped towards a more academic positioning that obviously breaks with traditional connoisseurship.9 Auction catalogues have become more comprehensive with several-page notes, richly illustrated with high-quality reproductions, and supported by expert opinions and scholarly references, which is revealing of a new kind of relationship between both the scientific field and the art trade (Boll 2011).

Methodology The following section analyses how auction houses and purchasers have reacted to the epistemological shifts that occurred in the academic field, and seeks to detect new market behaviours towards authorship. From the supply side, these new behaviours are expected to be reflected in well-­ documented lot notes, especially for lower-attributed works (“attributed to”, “studio of ”, “circle of ”), in accordance with scientific progress. Indeed, according to Tummers and Jonckheere (2008, 69–95), longer lot notes can be seen as an indicator of quality on the art market. From the demand side, we may expect that information provided by salesrooms increases the buyers’ confidence towards non-autograph works, as well as their willingness to pay, with higher prices paid for those categories of works. These assumptions are relevant since the reception of art is viewed as an active process that makes consumers aware of what they consume (Charpentier 2006), and that the price that buyers are willing to pay for a certain category of paintings is revealing of the value they give to it (Grampp 1989; Frey 2003). The last statement is traditionally used by economists as an indicator of the consumer’s market behaviour and preferences.  According to Lyna and Vermeylen (2009), first evidence of sales catalogues is detected in the first-­ half of the sixteenth century. At the time, they were already used as marketing tools, to promote the lots to be auctioned. 9

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The salesrooms’ discourse is explored through a subsample of lots offered for sale by two leading auction houses, Christie’s and Sotheby’s. In total, 235 lot notes related to Pieter Brueghel the Younger, and published between 1998 and 2015, have been processed through a qualitative discourse analysis (Wodak and Kryżanowki 2008; Wodak and Meyer 2009) using TAMS Analyser software. The homogeneity of the data set, composed of materials of similar form and content, all published in English by two competing firms, offers optimal conditions to carry out the analysis. Conventionally, the typical structure of a lot note begins with a short datasheet that specifies the main characteristics of the painting (attribution, name of the artist, title, material, technique, dimensions, signature, date or inscription), before providing information about provenance, previous exhibitions and scholarly literature related to the work itself, when available. Then comes a narrative comment that describes the subject and insists on some characteristics of the work that could make it particularly appealing for buyers. These comments have been taken into account in this study to detect salesrooms’ discourse strategies that may betray their adherence to new connoisseurship. Indeed, discourse analysis helps to better understand how commercial firms promote a particular category of goods and how they attempt to create value. As demonstrated by Khaire and Wadhwani (2010, 1281), discourse analysis enables researchers to identify the rhetorical strategies used by art market players to create meaning and value around new market categories. By reinterpreting historical constructs, marketers renew the valuation process with possible effects on prices. But the promotion of products with culturally powerful knowledge and meaning inevitably requires shared discourses between both academia and the trade (Thompson 2004; Fitchett and Caruana 2015).The following research criteria have been defined on the basis of the main characteristics of art history discourse (Hatt and Klonk 2006) in order to extract from sales catalogues every comment that refers to: a) the historical context in which the work was executed; b) elements of iconography and style; c) material and technical specificities; d) references to external voices (experts or art historians);

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e) references to other similar pictures executed by Pieter Bruegel the Elder; f) references to other similar pictures executed by Pieter Brueghel the Younger; g) references to similar works executed by other masters. Terms related to the vocabulary of certainty and uncertainty have also been tracked, in particular modal verbs and approximation adverbs. Secondly, we explore the demand side in considering the buyers’ willingness to pay. To do so, an econometric model called hedonic regression has been used to determine the economic weight of the scale of authenticity on the art market. Developed by economist Kevin Lancaster (1966), this model artificially deconstructs every piece of art in a “bundle of observable characteristics”. Those characteristics are intrinsic (dimensions, material, technique, iconography, signature, date) and extrinsic (provenance, exhibitions, publications, venue of the sale, year of the sale). All are regressed on prices to get their own implicit value; the sum of those implicit prices partly explains the total average price paid for these artworks. This method has the advantage to allow for a focus on the authenticity scale, and offers consistent price comparisons for a large set of heterogeneous pictures. Results will show whether or not the consumers’ purchasing behaviour is still determined by the quest for authorship, or whether an increasing interest in weaker attribution qualifiers is noticeable and attests an emancipation from the quest for the artist’s name. The data set totals 838 observations (paintings only), extracted from the Blouin Art Sales Index,10 and covers a chronological framework of sixty years (1955–2015).11 Once buy-ins are removed from the sample, 733 auction transactions remain exploitable for the statistical analysis.  The Blouin Art Sales Index is one of the most extensive and exhaustive database recording auction results from 1922 to date, covering the sales of 425,000 artists and 3000 auction houses. Prices are displayed for each lot sold, expressed in USD, EUR, and GBP. 10

11

N

 The basic hedonic model is the following: ln pk ,t = α 0 + ∑ α i xi ,k ,t + β t + ε i ,k ,t where ln pk, t is the i =1

logarithm of the hammer price of a painting k, with k = 1,2,…, K sold at time t, with t = 1,2….T; xi, k, t is the ith quantitative and qualitative characteristics of a painting k of Pieter Brueghel the Younger that depends or not of t (the year in which the lot is sold). εk, t is an error term, and α and β are parameters.

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Hammer prices have been deflated using US Consumer Price Index and expressed in 2015 US dollars. Even while we mainly focus on the attribution qualifiers (as defined in auction glossaries), other hedonic controls have been included in the regression, that is, dimensions (height and width in cm), materials (panel∗, canvas, copper, other materials), techniques (oil∗, tempera), signature, date, provenance, exhibitions, literature, certificate, technical analyses, subjects (peasantries∗, moralising genre scenes, religious scenes, landscapes, other subjects), salesrooms (Sotheby’s London, Sotheby’s New York, Sotheby’s other locations, Christie’s London, Christie’s New York, Christie’s other locations, Bonhams, Dorotheum, Drouot, Koller, Lempertz, Phillips, Piasa, Tajan, other salesrooms∗) and the year of the sale.12 With the exception of dimensions that are continuous variables, all the others are dummy variables that take the value of 1 when the characteristic is met, and 0 otherwise.

Empirical Results and Discussion Analysis of the Supply Side Figure 8.1 gives the distribution of the attribution qualifiers recorded in the database. The Brueghel case is unique since two-thirds of the paintings sold at auction were presumed to be autograph, which is rather unusual on that market segment. Other attribution qualifiers are equally but lower represented in the sample, with the exception of works in “the manner of ” that only constitute 0.4% of the data set. The first step of the analysis is to detect variations in the volume of information provided by attribution qualifier, in measuring the length of each lot note. To do so, the total of words recorded in each note has been computed. Even though this method can lead to some biases (mainly due to potential outliers in the data set), the results of the lexicometric analysis show significant differences in terms of informational content provided to buyers for each kind of attribution qualifier. Figure 8.2 clearly illustrates  Variables followed by ∗ are taken as control group in the model.

12

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Fig. 8.1  Distribution by attribution qualifier (n = 733)

Fig. 8.2  Average length of notes (or total number of words) by attribution qualifier

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a regular decreasing pattern that closely follows the scale of values defined by salesrooms, in terms of authenticity, from autograph paintings (“by”) to paintings in the “manner of ” (“after” being an exception). “Autograph pictures” is the most documented category with an average of 521 words, followed by works attributed to Pieter Brueghel the Younger with 324 words. A first significant gap appears with the notes related to workshop outputs, which account for an average of 192 words, and pictures executed in the circle of the artist with an average of 157 words. Only 102 words are recorded for works executed by later and anonymous followers, while works painted in the manner of Pieter Brueghel the Younger, or copies after his prototypes, are almost not considered in auction catalogues, some of them being not documented at all. These observations support the assumption that cataloguers maintain a strong hierarchy in the scale of values. They provide—intentionally or not, and depending on the availability of information—unequal volume of informational content by attribution qualifier, and then create product differentiation. Unsurprisingly, autograph paintings are proportionally more documented than pictures for which autography is uncertain or rejected. The next step of the analysis consists in going through the lot notes in order to detect discourse strategies used by salesrooms to promote these heterogeneous paintings, and to see whether or not their promotional discourse is consistent with new connoisseurship. The main results are exposed in the following paragraphs but should not be abusively transposed on other market segments, even though similar mechanisms are recurrently observed in auction catalogues. Amongst the three main methods traditionally used by art historians to authenticate paintings (stylistic, iconographic and material comparisons), the comparative analysis based on formal and compositional patterns is most often encountered in Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s notes, regardless of the level of authenticity. Indeed, nearly 90% of lot notes are built on the key notion of “composition”, namely, the syntactic layout of the components of a depicted scene. In many cases, ready-made formulas related to the general composition are reused for similar paintings but without properly considering the stylistic characteristics of the lot or its attribution

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qualifier.13 Yet, as mentioned before, style criticism is of fundamental importance to accurately authenticate paintings and, paradoxically, comments based on stylistic or material evidence are limited or even omitted in auction catalogues. Some works are exceptions, and especially unquestionable masterpieces for which there is reliable stylistic, material and archival evidence of authorship. The notion of composition is moreover part of a broader reference system that aims at promoting the “Brueghel” brand above all. In most cases, and regardless of the level of attribution, references are made to the name Pieter Bruegel the Elder and his famous prototypes. Cataloguers establish as many connections as possible between the lot and the original model, in discussing visible similarities and differences between both pictures. Yet, Bruegel the Elder is not the only artist to whom cataloguers refer; major paintings by Pieter Brueghel the Younger himself also serve as benchmarks, as well as those of his predecessors Marten van Cleve and Pieter Balten. This reference system materialises in the text through a lexicon that insists on the formal links that exist between those paintings (“derives from”, “is based on”, “known through”, “known from”, “closely follows”, “differs from”). In this respect, Garric and Léglise (2012) have argued that referential discourse strategies, typical of expertise discourses, allow salesrooms to avoid discussing  See, for example, Pieter Brueghel II, The Wedding Dance in the Barn, Christie’s King Street (London), 08 July 2005, lot 24: “Instead the direct prototype for both latter types is seen to be the engraving by Pieter van der Heyden after Pieter I of A Wedding Dance in the Open Air that was published by Hieronymus Cock; a derivation from the same source is also known by Jan Brueghel I (Bordeaux, Musée des Beaux-Arts). The earliest known paintings of that subject by Pieter II are those in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore, and the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, both of which are signed and dated 1607”; Studio of Pieter Brueghel II, The Wedding Feast: a fragment, Christie’s (Amsterdam), 03 November 2004, lot 39: “It would appear, however, that for this compositional type there is no single prototype, but that instead it is a combination of motifs: many of the figures coming from the Pieter I composition of The wedding dance in the open recorded by an engraving by Pieter van der Heyden, and the setting inspired by the former’s celebrated Wedding Dance in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, grouped together and then embellished by Pieter II himself ” ; Manner of Pieter Brueghel the Younger, A Village Scene with Peasants Dancing outside an Inn, Sotheby’s (Amsterdam), 04 November 2003, lot 4: “The two dancing couples to the right here can be seen in several paintings by Brueghel the Younger, and originates, in reverse, in a print by Pieter van der Heyden after Brueghel the Elder (see Hollstein vol. IX, no. 61)” ; Follower of Pieter Brueghel II, The Wedding Dance in the Barn, Christie’s King Street (London), 09 December 2005, lot 105: “Instead the direct prototype for both latter types is seen to be the engraving by Pieter van der Heyden after Pieter I of A Wedding Dance in the Open Air that was published by Hieronymus Cock; a derivation from the same source is also known by Jan Brueghel I (Bordeaux, Musée des Beaux-Arts)”. 13

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key issues (i.e. authenticity), in focusing the attention of purchasers on other topics such as the underlying meaning of the composition (especially for the Bird trap and Proverbs) or the origins of the prototype (in particular for the Payment of the Tithes and the Wedding dance). Again, these digressions do not concern the lot itself, but the general composition that it shares with many other works. However, to conform to academic discourse, salesrooms have adopted a modal neutrality. This neutrality is based on an “enunciative effacement” that materialises in the use of the passive voice and impersonal pronouns, as well as the rejection of any subjective comment and value judgement. The low frequency of superlative adjectives, which might be expected in every marketing-­ oriented discourse, confirms that quest for objectivity. High proportions of modal and stative verbs (“may”, “might”, “can”, “could be”, “would be”, “seems”, “appears”, “looks”, “supposes”, “has been thought”, “is likely to be”) and approximation adverbs (“probably”, “possibly”, “credibly”) clearly remind the language precautions of the academic discourse, but inevitably generate uncertainty. Uncertainty is sometimes expressed in concrete facts such as the current state of research that prevents cataloguers from drawing any conclusion about authorship, the difficulty of accurately identifying the hand of the artist14 or a lack of information about the pedigree of the work. Information about the authentication process is, however, needed to reduce information asymmetry and support the given attribution, especially because it significantly determines the buyers’ behaviour. For paintings executed by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, catalogue notes refer to the opinion of the artist’s leading expert, Klaus Ertz. Most of his opinions are available in his catalogue raisonné (1998/2000), or through certificates of authenticity. More specifically, 47% of lots comprised in the data set have been subject to Ertz’s expertise. For salesrooms, referring to the name of a leading expert is undoubtedly an ideal case-scenario. References to  See, for example: Attributed to Pieter Brueghel II and Studio, The Outdoor Wedding Feast, Sotheby’s York Avenue (New York), 9 June 2011, lot 36: “(…) The present work appears to have been executed in Brueghel’s studio. Whether Brueghel himself executed parts of the work remains unclear, though it is certainly plausible”; Pieter Brueghel I, The Peasant’s Brawl, Sotheby’s New Bond Street (London), 09 December 2015, lot 29: “(…) The relationship between the various versions is quite complex, and much argument remains as to what extent Pieter Brueghel the Younger may have worked with his brother or his nephew (…)”. 14

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external voices (experts, art historians, professors) enhance the market confidence and allow salesrooms to disclaim responsibility in case of misattributions. But the polyphonic dialogue, expected in every academic debate, is rarely attested in lot notes since the main referee is automatically the author of the catalogue raisonné.15 When different opinions about the attribution were previously discussed amongst scholars, the debate is rapidly close by the decision of the leading expert in order to avoid as much as possible dissensus and disagreement, which usually sends bad signal to buyers since they increase uncertainty about the attribution (Monte and Oger 2015). Interestingly, workshop output appears to be progressively considered. In accordance with new connoisseurship, occasional references to underdrawings and technical aspects of paintings have been detected in the data set. Lot notes suggest that works executed in the master’s studio imply a direct access to the original model or, at least, the use of preparatory cartoons.16 For lower-attributed works, some attempts to corroborate the given attribution are made, but they are far from being systematic. Predictably, salesrooms’ justifications are occasionally based on iconographic similarities or dissimilarities, but are not concerned with stylistic features. According to salesrooms, works executed in the circle of the  See, for example: Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Peasant Warming themselves beside a hearth, Sotheby’s New Bond Street (London), 09 December 2015, lot 5. “If these, the version in the Dutch collection is monogrammed PB at the upper left and was exhibited as Pieter Brueghel the Younger when it was with P. de Boer in 1939. The exhibition catalogue noted that the panel was previously ascribed to Marten van Cleve. It was then tentatively given to Pieter Baltens by Georges Marlier, a view subsequently shared by Stephan Kostyshyn, who dated it to the 1570s. Kostyshyn believed that the other versions known to him belonged to the workshop of Baltens or were slightly later copies. Writing most recently in his 2002 catalogue raisonné on Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Klaus Ertz followed on the whole the views outlined by Kostyshyn and did not believe that any of the aforementioned versions could be connected to Brueghel the Younger”. 16  See, for example: Workshop of Pieter Brueghel II, Christ on the Road to Calvary, Christie’s King Street (London), 08 December 2015, lot 3. “The accurate transmission of this and other details suggests that the author of this work was close to the Brueghel family workshop, who may have had access to an original cartoon (the width of the present panel corresponds to that of the autograph versions). However, the handling is quite different from that of Pieter Brueghel the Younger and the creative initiative which is indicated by numerous small changes, and the vivacity expressed in the facial types, suggests a talented and independent artist. The work is executed with the use of high quality pigments—for example, the blues used for the draperies of Christ and of Saint John the Evangelist. The painterly idiosyncrasies of the brushwork may indicate a greater proximity to the technique of Jan Brueghel the Elder, Pieter Brueghel’s younger brother”. 15

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artist depict minor differences in comparison with their model,17 while works executed by followers reveal major compositional variations.18 Pictures “in the manner of ” only offer compositions that vaguely remind Brueghel’s maniera or plagiarise Brueghelian patterns, without convincing aesthetic connections.19 Though new connoisseurship is based on a similar reasoning, it is necessary to stress that salesrooms’ arguments are generally weak and rarely based on substantial scientific evidence. Moreover, “minor” and “major” differences are relative notions that are not sufficiently conclusive for the attribution process. When there is no available evidence to support the attribution, the reference system (to peripheral issues, similar compositions and models, scholarly debates on other topics) is therefore a useful strategy to start a discussion and provide a minimum of content in the notes. In brief, the close examination of sales catalogues has revealed unequal attention paid to works of art depending on their level of authenticity, and showed an obvious gap between autograph and non-autograph pictures. Though some occasional attempts to warrant the attribution have been detected, the analysis has demonstrated that lower-attributed works are still little considered by cataloguers, with no specific efforts to create value around those lots. Academic pretentions of salesrooms are then limited and still focus on the most profitable works of art, with lot notes that are rather based on a patchwork of selective pieces of information than solid arguments that support or reject (full or partial) authorship. In other words, we did not find compelling evidence of a significant adherence to  See, for example: Circle of Pieter Brueghel II, The Flemish Proverbs, Christie’s King Street (London), 09 June 2011, lot 10. “Ertz notes that the present picture includes a number of striking differences from the prototype, and characterizes the picture as the work of a capable, inventive artist working under the influence of the Bruegels.” 18  See, for example: Follower of Pieter Brueghel II, Figures drawing wine from a barrel outside the Swan inn, Christie’s South Kensington (London), 11 April 2013, lot 32. “Painted on an oak panel of typical Flemish, seventeenth-century construction, this composition is not to be found in any other example known to the cataloguer. It relates closely, however, to a number of compositions from the repertory of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (? c. 1525/30–1569) and his son and imitator Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564/5–1637/8)”. 19  See, for example: Manner of Pieter Brueghel II, A Village Scene with Peasants Dancing outside a Inn, Christie’s (Amsterdam), 04 November 2003, lot 4. “This painting is based on compositions by Pieter Brueghel the Elder and the Younger. The left part of the composition is taken directly from a painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, depicting Peasants dancing, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (inv. no. 1059). The two dancing couples to the right here can be seen in several paintings by Brueghel the Younger”. 17

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new connoisseurship, despite an apparent academic positioning. In the opposite case, we would have expected much longer and detailed lot notes, focusing on the authentication process in order to convincingly support the given attribution and help buyers to be aware of the visual and material properties of the work. In addition, descriptions based on material and stylistic considerations, rather than iconographic ones, would have been more consistent with new connoisseurship. Providing informational content based on iconographical and compositional features is, however, a rhetorical strategy that enables the market to deal with an extensive number of anonymous works, particularly subject to uncertainty, in simulating a situation of certainty since this approach does not require lots of investigations. Recent research conducted by linguists on expertise discourse has nonetheless pointed out the consequences that these rhetorical strategies may have on the public. For instance, Garric and Léglise (2012) denounce an intellectual manipulation that influences consumers and prevents them from truly making their own judgement. In this case, the notion of judgement is related to the purchasing decision. If every buyer, obviously, remains free to purchase what he wants, the current discourse strategies detected in auction catalogues are likely to influence their market behaviour, as suggested in the next section. In deliberately focusing on commercially appealing goods, and creating a discrimination between lots that deserve to be documented and those that are left undocumented, salesrooms tempt buyers to pay greater attention to the first category of goods, for which authorship is presumably guaranteed. However, non-autograph paintings offer characteristics (e.g. subject, artistic and aesthetic qualities, substitutes to unaffordable/unavailable originals) that are likely to be valued by buyers, but most of them are rarely promoted as such. At this point, this is probably because this endeavour would be time-consuming, but low cost-effective in the end.

Analysis of the Demand Side After this brief overview of the supply side, the demand for Brueghel’s paintings is considered to see whether or not old master buyers seem to adhere to salesrooms’ discourse strategies, and whether or not their

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market behaviours reveal a possible emancipation from the quest for the artist’s name. In this case, changes in the purchasing behaviour could be reflected in significant buyers’ willingness to pay for non-autograph paintings. In a previous study, Onofri (2009) applies hedonic regressions to price authenticity on the market for Old Masters, by splitting her data set between autograph works (“By”) and uncertain attributions (from “attributed to” to “copy after”). She demonstrates that uncertainty about authenticity generates significant negative effects on the market. In our case, reasonable price differences between autograph and non-autograph paintings would suggest that purchasers are sufficiently informed about the artistic value of non-autograph paintings, and have taken some critical distance towards the notion of authorship, which enables them to appreciate these works for themselves. Table 8.1 offers some descriptive statistics based on average and median prices. The results of interest are displayed in Table 8.2 and Fig. 8.3 (for a detailed table including all the variables and results, see Appendix). The coefficients show the average price differences that purchasers are willing to pay for each attribution qualifier. The attribution qualifiers are amongst the most valuable variables in the model, representing one-third of the explanatory factors of prices

Table 8.1  Descriptive statistics—Average and Median Prices by Attribution Qualifier Attribution qualifiers

Average prices

Median prices

By (By and studio) Attributed to Studio of Circle of Follower of Manner of After (Works of collaboration)

792,498 264,320 151,991 94,221 57,473 46,846 36,825 47,478 388,873

379,167 170,110 77,044 75,801 39,398 33,173 17,774 31,09 186,110

Prices are expressed in real price 2015 US dollars. “By and studio” and “Works of collaboration” are not officially recorded in auction glossaries but detected by the author in some lot notes

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Table 8.2  Results of the Hedonic Regression by Attribution Qualifier Authenticity variables

Coefficients

By (By and studio) Attributed to Studio of Circle of Follower of Manner of After (Works of collaboration)

0 (−) −0.895∗∗∗ (0.296) −1.268∗∗∗ (0.161) −1.853∗∗∗ (0.145) −2.176∗∗∗ (0.140) −2.592∗∗∗ (0.150) −3.356∗∗∗ (0.568) −2.918∗∗∗ (0.266) −0.938∗∗ (0.398)

n = 733 Dependent variable is log (real price 2015 US Dollars). All other standard controls are included ∗∗∗ p