Shyon Baumann, “A general theory of artistic legitimation: How art worlds are like social movements”

“a general theory for explaining how cultural products are legitimated as art, whether high or popular art”
“the major concepts that explain the paths of social movements also apply to art worlds”
Distinction between art and not-art, rather than high and low art
“recognition of art is a social process that cannot be reduced to a reflection of artistic merit”
Why some culture gets recognition as art and other does not, and can change over time?
Artistic legitimation as a general process
The way social movements succeed in their goals is parallel to processes of legitimation
In social movements, three explanatory factors:
Political opportunity structures
Resource mobilization
Framing processes
In art worlds, likewise:
A changing cultural opportunity space
The institutionalization of resources and practices
Legitimating ideology
Combining these conceptual frameworks may help to understand other processes of legitimation outside of art and social movements
Legitimacy as acceptance of claims of status/authority as valid
How are cultural products repositioned institutionally and intellectually and thus redefined as legitimate art?
Consensus is never absolute (near-consensus)
Various levels of consensus within an art world
Different kinds of “reward systems” within art worlds (who are the gatekeepers?)
External VS internal legitimacy (artistic consumers in general VS inner members of an art world)
“A justification is an argument made to explain how the unaccepted is in fact acceptable because it conforms to existing, valid norms, values, or rules.”
What about when justifications are made in order to distinguish radically between the new kind of art (as in realist film theory)?
The legitimacy of a form can vary considerably over time and in different contexts
“Rap’s legitimacy has steadily increased so that it now enjoys recognition as a legitimate popular art. This recognition reflects a fairly wide, though by no means absolute, consensus that the justifications for rap as art are valid.”
There is no consensus on whether rap is a high art form, unlike opera
“legitimacy requires consensus only somewhere, not everywhere,” Zelditch (2001, p. 10)
Legitimacy generated through a process of collective action – art worlds and cultural fields are sites of collective action (as are social movements)
General theory of legtimation: opportunities, resources, and framing
Social movement success as a process of legitimation
Social movements attempt to “legitimate – make accepted – an idea that was initially not widely accepted.”
“Success” does not necessarily mean actual change, but the acceptance of the idea as common sense or taken-for-granted
Art worlds are doubly concerned with legitimacy (artists themselves + other agents)
“Not only do the claims about artistic status need to be justified, but the right to make claims, and the bases on which those claims are made, need to be justified as well.”
Many different kinds of “success” in art worlds – usually in relation to some kind of audience acceptance, whatever that audience might be (restricted and elite/internal, mass/external)
Three concepts to explain social movement success:
“Opportunity: exogenous factors facilitate success”
“political opportunities” or “opportunity structures”
The environment in which movements operate – context
Analogous to the “opportunity space” in art
“certain exogenous factors can affect the likelihood that an art world will succeed in attaining legitimacy.”
Structural VS symbolic external variables
Factors influencing mobilization/emergence VS legitimation/acceptance
Factors that members are cognizant of VS unaware
“To be useful, sociologists of art need a concept of opportunity space that provides further guidance about how to understand the different roles played by different kinds of exogenous factors.”
“Resources: endogenous factors facilitate success”
Mobilizing tangible or intangible resources (“they can take the form of money, labor, knowledge, experience, network connections and institutionalized relationships, prestige and status, physical equipment or assets, informal traditions, organizational forms, emotional energy, and leadership.”)
“To explain artistic legitimation, we need to know which resources are mobilized and to understand the particular benefits brought by particular kinds of resources.”
“Resources” can range from institutional settings to prestige or status
Practical work/symbolic work
Distinguish between resources for physical production and resources for symbolic production of its value
Museums, private galleries, universities, etc.
“in order to be in agreement with existing conceptions of what art is” (Again, what about new conceptions of art that emerge alongside the legitimation of a form?)
Tactics and strategies (indie music/indie games) – how do art worlds imitate and learn from one another?
“Discourse, ideology, and frames: legitimation requires an explanation”
The role of ideas – framing of goals and tactics to make them “comprehensible, valid, acceptable and desirable.”
Framing is always linked to/appeals to (but is distinct from) ideology (“a complex system of related ideas that combines an explanation of the world with normative prescriptions for behavior”)
Discourses (“broad systems of communication that link concepts together in a web of relationships through an underlying logic”) provide the tools through which ideology can be invoked in the process of applying/inventing a frame
Discourse (general ways of talking about art) > Ideology (theories of art) > Frame (specific applications of theories of art)
These distinctions can “clarify how ideas function to legitimate culture in fundamentally similar ways across cultural genres”
“aestheticians create ideologies of art, and critics frame particular works of art by appealing to the theories and values of specific ideologies.
“The art world, in the sense of the field of cultural production in general, possesses a discourse of common terms and ideas for discussing art. More narrowly defined art worlds, such as the art world for poetry, possess elements of discourse that are specific to that art world.”
Critics of a new form mimic criticism of established forms (preexisting ideas and values)
“The general theory of artistic legitimation can be stated as follows: Discrete areas of cultural production attain legitimacy as art, high or popular, during periods of high cultural opportunity through mobilizing material or institutional resources and through the exercise of a discourse that frames the cultural production as legitimate art according to one or more preexisting ideologies.”
Parallels also to scientific/intellectual movements
Degrees of success/failure, not a binary – many possible outcomes in many different contexts
Framing “instructs targeted audience members about how to correctly perceive and interpret specific issues, conditions, events, and objects. Framing is made convincing by invoking the ideas and values in ideologies which already have currency. In this way, framing justifies the movement’s or art world’s ideas as legitimate by building consensus.”
Legitimation framework enables “comparisons across symbol-producing realms”