The Sociological Dimension of Art: A Historical Perspective, Apuntes de Sociología

¡Descarga The Sociological Dimension of Art: A Historical Perspective y más Apuntes en PDF de Sociología solo en Docsity! Sociology of Art and sociological art Written by Sarah Yanil Jose Roman University of Barcelona Faculty of Sociology 2022 Introduction It could be affirmed that, for at least a century and a half – that is, from the realist aesthetic concerns of the mid-nineteenth century – a certain sociological dimension has been developing in a consistent part of artistic practices. I am referring to that recognized capacity of art to innovate, thanks to its socializing function, to persuade and propose values capable of exerting a moral influence. This vision of art as a conscious fact (self-reflective, critical and "deconstructive") of interaction with social reality - or, in other words, as a material and symbolic place within which to deploy a public discourse and express concrete positions on values, the meanings and rules of art – has sometimes come to question even the very limits, presuppositions and conventions of society itself and not only of academic traditions. It is worth noting, among other examples, the importance that, over the last decades, has been attributed to artistic themes of a social nature such as identity, otherness, difference, gender, ethnicity, generation, etc. In Philosophy of Art (1864) Hippolyte Adolphe Taine (1828-1893) laid the foundations for a methodical approach to the work of art from a naturalistic and positivist perspective, which took into account the historical conditions of the work itself. However, the label “sociology of art” is mainly due to Jean Marie Guayu (1854-1888) and his work Art from the sociological point of view (1889, posthumous). In this work, adherence to the evolutionary point of view induces Guayu to assume a clearly anti-Kantian stance in the aesthetic field, that is, profoundly far from the disinterested and contemplative character of Kant's attitude. In fact, in the aforementioned book, Guayu appeals to the ability of art to expand the limits of consciousness, thus implying, in its understanding, its relationship with the world. Art from the sociological point of view begins, very significantly, with these words: «The highest task of the nineteenth century has been (...) to highlight the social aspect of the human individual and in general of the animated entity». From this perspective, then, it seems to be a typical feature of contemporary art that the aesthetic and the social are increasingly intertwined, both in the practice of artists and in the specific choices of curators, institutions, critics, etc… until they become confused. Part of the current artistic production (as well as its representations and “presentations”) seems to encompass and imply demands, theoretical premises and experiences of different and increasingly differentiated technical lexicons and terminologies, etc. . It is, in other words, a vision of art that is no longer idealized, but realistically contaminated by the facts and by the new scientific disciplines. In this sense, this paragraph by Boccioni could be considered as an implicitly sociological reflection on art in contemporary times: a reflection that highlights the need to deepen the relationship between artistic production and its reference space-time context and that conceives artistic practices (its techniques, rules and purposes) as something alive, which dialogues "connectively" with the discoveries, inventions and theoretical disciplines of its time. This way of looking at art, which I have defined “implicitly sociological”, could be traced back to that atmosphere of renewal of the arts typical of the aforementioned realism; stimulated, among other things, by the numerous inventions and the technological, scientific and infrastructural advances that took place throughout the 19th century. These include at least photography, the railway, and the cinematograph. Giacomo Balla, Dynamism of a cane al guinzaglio, Oil on canvas, 1912. Albright-Knox Art, Buffalo. In the presence of a growing contamination between the forms of thought, the theoretical disciplines and the types of discourse, the artist today plays an increasingly role of "reader" and "interpreter" of images, as well as "creator" of them. In other words, the artist, today more than ever, forces/invites us to look at the things we see in a different way (unusual, dissatisfied, etc.). In addition, the approach to the work of art by the viewer can no longer do without considerations about its status as an object of consumption. Everyone is perfectly clear that the production, circulation and enjoyment of a work of art entail fundamental commercial implications (in addition to the cultural, symbolic or purely aesthetic ones) that affect the pre, during and post realization of the work. work itself. As everyone knows very well, our current look at art – as well as at any other factual field of the human race – is conditioned, in many cases, by a consumer's look. Since pop art openly celebrated it, half a century ago, the dimension of consumption, as a cultural element and aesthetic reference model of post-war, "standardized" and "mass" society, represents an explicit and generally accepted facet of contemporary artistic production. In other words, the dimension of consumption represents a "classic" aspect both in the different options of current creative production (that is, its languages, themes, supports, materials, techniques, etc.) and its aesthetic premises. Perhaps other elements could also be considered that contribute to increasing the degree of complexity of current art, as is the case of that stock market and speculative dimension that generates the tendency – which I define here as "budget art" - to spectacularize the increasingly frequent promotion of supposed "events of the century" or of immense banalities disguised as "essential" updates that try to represent "modern times" through pre- cooked productions ready to be heated in the microwave of the public or private white boxes where the criteria of judgment and artistic values are watered down if not clearly inhibited. All this often leaves whoever approaches the work of art in the middle of a clear difficulty, which largely reflects the confusion of the current Western consumer society (globalized and "post-everything"): a society that is dramatically in search of new hypotheses of social relations, of new meanings and values and, therefore, of new forms of representation and expression. Keith Haring, Andy Mouse, Courtesy: The Keith Haring Foundation, NY. We are all aware that if there is something typical in current art, it is precisely its “expanded” nature: that is, open to contamination; to hybridization;[6] to transversality; to reticular, connective and organic logic. In addition (and increasingly) viewers are invited to actively participate in the works themselves, to interact with them through practices that are based on "relational" aesthetic principles. In such a complex context, the sociology of art tries to study the subjects and relationships that make up the structure of the art system and its interactions with the production, circulation and fruition of art. In the next step, Vincenç Furió explains very well the heuristic purposes of this discipline and the contributions of his method, which is valid both for the understanding of the art system and for the interpretation of the works themselves. «If we think about the plastic arts, the sociology of art analyzes the political, economic, social and cultural conditions that act in this field, and studies the role