Arts and Power: Policies in and by the Arts

by Lisa Gaupp (Editor), Alenka Barber-Kersovan (Editor), Volker Kirchberg (Editor)

Overview

The focus on concepts of power and domination in societal structures has characterized sociology since its beginnings. Max Weber’s definition of power as “imposing one’s will on others” is still relevant to explaining processes in the arts, whether their production, imagination, communication, distribution, critique or consumption. Domination in the arts is exercised by internal and external rulers through institutionalized social structures and through beliefs about their legitimacy, achieved by defining and shaping art tastes.

The complexity of how the arts relate to power arises from the complexity of the policies of artistic production, distribution and consumption—policies which serve to facilitate or hinder an aesthetic object from reaching its intended public. Curators, critics and collectors employ a variety of forms of cultural and artistic communication to mirror and shape the dominant social, economic and political conditions.

Arts and Power: Policies in and by the Arts brings together diverse voices who position the societal functions of art in fields of domination and power, of structure and agency—whether they are used to impose hegemonic, totalitarian or unjust goals or to pursue social purposes fostering equal rights and grassroots democracy. The contributions in this volume are exploratory steps towards what we believe can be a more systematic, empirically and theoretically founded sociological debate on the arts and power. And they are an invitation to take further steps.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783658374280
Publisher:	Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
Publication date:	09/06/2022
Series:	Kunst und Gesellschaft
Edition description:	1st ed. 2022
Pages:	358
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

Prof. Dr. Lisa Gaupp, Professor of Cultural Institutions Studies at the Department of Cultural Management and Gender Studies (IKM) at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna

Hon. Prof. Dr. Alenka Barber-Kersovan, Honorary Professor of Sociology of Music at the Institute of Sociology and Cultural Organization at Leuphana University of Lüneburg

Prof. Dr. Volker Kirchberg, Professor of Sociology of the Arts at the Institute of Sociology and Cultural Organization at Leuphana University of Lüneburg

Table of Contents

.Establishing and De-Establishing Power in the Arts.- The Arts and the Power of Social Structures.- The Arts and the Dominance of Politics and Economic Order.