Art and the Challenge of Markets Volumes 1 & 2 examine the politics of art and culture in light of the profound changes that have taken place in the world order since the 1980s and 1990s. The contributors explore how in these two decades, the neoliberal or market-based model of capitalism started to spread from the economic realm to other areas of society. As a result, many aspects of contemporary Western societies increasingly function in the same way as the private enterprise sector under traditional market capitalism. This second volume analyses the relationships of art with contemporary capitalist economies and instrumentalist cultural policies, and examines several varieties of capitalist-critical and alternative art forms that exist in today’s art worlds. It also addresses the vexed issues of art controversies and censorship. The chapters cover issues such as the culturalization of the economy, aesthetics and anti-aesthetics, the societal benefits of works of art, art's responsibility to society, "artivism", activist arts as protest and capitalism-critical works, and controversies over nudity in art, as well as considering the marketisation of emerging visual arts worlds in East Asia. The book ends with the a concluding chapter suggesting that even in today's marketized and commercialized environments, art will find a way. Both volumes provide students and scholars across a range of disciplines with an incisive, comparative overview of the politics of art and culture and national, international and transnational art worlds in contemporary capitalism.

Art and the Challenge of Markets Volumes 1 & 2 examine the politics of art and culture in light of the profound changes that have taken place in the world order since the 1980s and 1990s. The contributors explore how in these two decades, the neoliberal or market-based model of capitalism started to spread from the economic realm to other areas of society. As a result, many aspects of contemporary Western societies increasingly function in the same way as the private enterprise sector under traditional market capitalism. The first volume of this two-volume collection considers a broad range of national cultural policies from European and North American countries, and examines the strengthening of international and transnational art worlds in music, visual arts, film, and television. The chapters cover cultural policy and political culture in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Switzerland, the Nordic countries, the Balkans, and Slovenia, and address the extent to which Western nations have shifted from welfare-state to market-based ideologies. Tensions between centres and peripheries in global art worlds are considered, as well as complex interactions between nations and international and transnational art worlds, and regional variations in the audiovisual market. Both volumes provide students and scholars across a range of disciplines with an incisive, comparative overview of the politics of art and culture and national, international and transnational art worlds in contemporary capitalism.

This book explores the attribution and local negotiation of cultural valuations of artistic and art-institutional practices around the world, and considers the diverse ways in which these value attributions intersect with claims of universality and cosmopolitanism. Taking Michael Herzfeld’s notion of the “global hierarchy of value” as point of departure, the volume brings together six empirical studies of the collection, circulation, classification and exhibition of objects in present-day Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Africa and Indigenous Australia in light of Europe’s loss of global hegemony. Including reflections by a number of senior scholars, the chapters demonstrate that the question of valuation lies at the heart of artistic and art-institutional practices writ large – including museum practices, museum architecture, galleries, auction houses, art fairs and biennales.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union brought a massive change in every domain of life, particularly in the cultural sector, where artists were suddenly "free" from party-mandated modes of representation and now could promote and sell their work globally. But in Russia, the encounter with Western art markets was fraught. The Russian field of art still remains on the periphery of the international art world, struggling for legitimacy in the eyes of foreign experts and collectors. This book examines the challenges Russian art world actors faced in building a field of art in a society undergoing rapid and significant economic, political, and social transformation and traces those challenges into the twenty-first century. Drawing on historical and ethnographic research, Art of Transition traces the ways the field of art has developed, evolved, and been sustained in Russia after socialism. It shows how Russia’s art world has grappled with its Soviet past and negotiated its standing in an unequal, globalized present. By attending to the historical legacy of Russian art throughout the twentieth century, this book constructs a genealogy of the contemporary field of postsocialist art that illuminates how Russians have come to understand themselves and their place in the world.

The title of this book is intended to be an honest one, far from exaggerated phrases and empty meanings. Three words, a preposition, and a coordinating conjunction: ‘Topics on Art and Money’. A coordinating conjunction, not a subordinating one, since this book does not intend to express a hierarchical order. As all words united by a coordinating conjunction, this book intends to connect them. As simple as that. This book presents, through the chapters written by its authors, some of the ways in which Art and Money are linked. In order to observe this relationship, this book consists of authors whose analysis refers to political propaganda, historical events with artistic repercussions or strictly economic analysis of the art market, for example. “And” connects, “or” divides. This book not only presents a connection between Art and Money, but between academics from different fields and geographical areas. This humble book presents, precisely, how individuals from different specialties think of this relationship. It will appeal to academics dedicated to Arts Economics and Cultural Management, professionals from the art market/world with an interest in works of an academic nature, and general readers with an interest in this topic and a strong knowledge of Arts Economics.

In this book, the contributors argue that deep-seated business practices in the worlds of art, fashion, and wine must be overturned to move towards environmental and social sustainability.

This edited collection develops the Strong Program’s contribution to the sociological study of the arts and places it in conversation with other cultural perspectives in the field. Presenting some of the newest and most original research by both renowned figures and early career scholars, the volume marks a new stage in the development of the cultural sociology of art and music. The chapters in Part 1 set new agendas by reflecting on the field’s history, presenting theoretical innovations, and suggesting future directions for research. Part 2 explores aesthetic issues and challenges in the creation, experience, and interpretation of art and music. Part 3 focuses on the material environments and social settings where people engage with art and music. In Part 4, the contributors examine controversies about music and contestation over artistic matters, whether in the public sphere, in the American judicial system, or in an emerging academic discipline. The editor’s introduction and Ron Eyerman's afterword place the chapters in context and reflect on their collective contribution to meaning-centered sociology.