ICCE staff were well-represented at Creative Locations: Art, Culture and the City, the 10th midterm Conference of the European Research Networks Sociology of the Arts and Sociology of Culture, held at the University of Malta Valletta Campus, 4-7 September 2018.
Aleksandar Brkić presented “Theatre in a Mosque: Borders and the Art in Singapore.”
Abstract: It is not so unusual to hear about a visual art installation or a theatre performance in a venue that was in the past used for religious purposes, although it can still cause a lot of controversy in the public. Such was the case of the installation by the Icelandic Art Centre (IAC) at the 2015 Venice Biennale, when they turned the space of a historic church into a mosque. It is more difficult to find cases of active religious venues that are accepting, hosting and/or partnering with contemporary art projects. This also depends on the context, openness and the understanding of the religious community to the discourses of contemporary art as a primarily Western construct. The context of Islam makes it much more difficult to connect the discourse of contemporary arts and contemporary theatre to an active mosque as a venue of performance. That is why the appearance of “Keelat Theatre Ensemble” in the Singapore theatre landscape in 2008 was a really interesting occurrence. Keelat delves “into Islamic perspectives of issues relevant and common to all theatre audiences with productions that are accessible yet insightful, well-grounded yet open-ended, opinionated yet thought- provoking, and in-so-doing bridge differences of ethnicity, economic status, intellectual capacity, culture and spirituality”. This paper discussed the deeper into the religious, political and social context of Singapore as a backdrop for the appearance of such a company and explored some of Keelat’s projects.
Cecilia Dinardi presented “Can There Be Culture-Led Urban Regeneration Without Gentrification? An Ethnographic Documentary View from Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.”
Abstract: In the last decade, a growing number of policy initiatives have emerged in Latin America as a response to the rise of a ‘creative turn’ in the global North. This presentation seeks to examine the impact of such turn on the urban imaginaries of policymakers, artists, businessmen, residents and creative workers in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, through the screening of a short ethnographic documentary film (17 min long) I directed and produced. Reflecting on the use of creative methodologies, the presentation discusses the case of Bhering, a former chocolate industrial factory that has become one of the city’s main creative economy hubs. Located in the city’s port region, the factory provides workspace to over 70 artists and 20 small creative enterprises across a range of fields and has become a constitutive part of the so-called Port’s Creative District, branded and promoted by the local government. In the context of the internationalization of the city, the area has been the target of a large-scale urban operation, Marvellous Port, which planned Rio as an ideal city of spectacles created for urban branding and mediatised cultural consumption (Jaguaribe, 2011), following a neoliberal entrepreneurial logic. Today Bhering functions indirectly as an intermediary between the local residents and the newly transformed port area, raising the question of artists’ unintentional complicity in gentrification processes and inviting a reflection about inclusive forms of cultural urbanism, particularly whether there can be culture-led urban regeneration without gentrification.
Victoria D. Alexander presented a paper, co-authored with Anne E. Bowler, “Outsider Art and the Social Construction of Aesthetic Value”
Abrstract: Outsider art or its analogs, Art Brut, Visionary or Self-Taught Art, occupies an increasingly recognized position in the contemporary art market at the international level. Just twenty-five years ago, Outsider art occupied a marginal status within the established art world and is thus uniquely positioned as a site for sociological investigation into the development of an art market and the process of aesthetic-cultural valuation. This talk focused on a case study of a recent record-breaking sale of Outsider Art, a limestone sculpture entitled Boxer by the American self-taught artist William Edmondson (1874-1951) The analysis highlights three issues. First, we demonstrate the contested nature of the valuation process, something that is particularly visible in the market for Outsider art. The canonization of a select group of Outsider artists, such as Edmondson, sheds light on the rise and increasing legitimation of Outsider art in the contemporary art market. Second, we propose that attention to the aesthetic field as a distinct arena within the broader cultural field offers the potential for scholars to broaden and enrich sociological scholarship on the arts. Building on the work of Bourdieu, we argue that aesthetic field are fields of action in which aesthetic ideas are socially constructed and where value is created and contested. Finally, we argue for the importance of the work of art in sociological analysis. As our analysis demonstrates, the work of art is necessary for understanding the record-breaking sale of Boxer.
ICCE hosted a book launch for Victoria D. Alexander, Samuli Hägg, Simo Häyrynen and Erkki Sevänen (2018). Art and the Challenge of Markets, Volume 1: National Cultural Politics and the Challenges of Marketization and Globalization, and Art and the Challenge of Markets, Volume 2: From Commodification of Art to Artistic Critiques of Capitalism (Palgrave; Sociology of the Arts Series)
Abstract: 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 first volume 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 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. 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.
Malta continued as an excellent scholarly destination for ICCE in September 2018. In the week following the ESA Conference, Oonagh Murphy presented her paper ‘Redefining the Museum for the Digital Age’ at the conference,
Digital Research in the Humanities and Arts, 9-12 September 2018.
Abstract: The idea of a useful museum is not a new one, it was an idea advocated by John Cotton Dana, in the early 20th Century. As director of Newark Museum he created a vision of a museum that it would benefit a city to own, Newark sought to bring art, science and industry into a conversation with each other. One hundred years on, the industry might be digital rather than mechanical but a range of museums are creating accelerator programmes and start up hubs and in doing so are reimaging Cotton Dana’s vision for the useful museum into one that is fit for purpose in this digital age. In this paper I will introduce three innovative models of museum practice, including maker spaces, contemporary collecting programmes, and start-up hubs. Through case studies drawn from Newark Museum, The V&A and New Museum I will illustrate how these new modes of museum practice provide a strong foundation for useful, resilient and dynamic museums which can not only survive but thrive in a digital age. This paper uses these case studies to examine the strategic, practical and theoretical implications that a positive relationship with the creative industries and wider digital culture can have on contemporary museum practice. This paper provides a census of innovation, across the sector, at this moment in time, and looks beyond a single institution to draw parallels, challenges and strategies between case studies and practice as a means to contribute to a wider conversation on what digital innovation looks like within a museum setting.
Photos by Victoria Alexander, Cecilia Dinardi, and Fang Hua.