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.

The editors

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

Autorentext

Dr. Lisa Gaupp, Research Associate and Administrative Professor for Sociology of Culture at the Institute for Sociology and Cultural Organisation at Leuphana University Lüneburg.

Hon.Prof. Dr. Alenka Barber-Kersovan, Professor for Sociology of Music at the Institute for Sociology and Cultural Organisation of Leuphana.

Prof. Dr. Volker Kirchberg, Professor for Sociology of the Arts at the Institute for Sociology and Cultural Organisation of Leuphana.

Klappentext

Concepts of power and domination are central for sociology since its beginnings. Classical theorists such as Marx, Weber, Gramsci, Adorno, Foucault, Bourdieu etc. developed these concepts as fundamental sociological terms; there is almost no (macro-)sociological discourse that does not draw from these notions. In general sociology, more abstract and theoretical concepts of power and domination are discussed, divesting from empirical explorations. Dispositifs, constraints and violence are relational concepts that are defined by the enforcement of volition against resistance (Weber). We are convinced that this "enforcement of volition" is also well suited for the explanation of structures and processes in the arts, in their production, imagination, communication, distribution, critique, and consumption. In addition, the arts are means for enforcing power and domination (see among others Adorno's notion of cultural industry more than 70 years ago, or Bourdieu's theory of distinction). Theoretically and empirically, the notion of policies is at the center of the conference. Policies in and by the arts are results of the struggle between the structures of social constraints and the agencies, capabilities, and possibilities of arts and artists to shape society. In this sense, the sociology of arts looks at the political alternations between structure and agency in the arts.

Inhalt

.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.