Art and Cultural Worlds

The seminal sociologist and exponent of the Chicago school of interactionists, Howard S. Becker, frames an art world as a “network of people whose cooperative activity, organized via their joint knowledge of conventional means of doing things, produces the kind of art works that (the) art world is noted for” (1982, x). Hence, the analysis of art and cultural worlds proposed by Becker provides a framework that avoids considering the aesthetic value of cultural objects and instead systematically explores the implications of art as a collective activity that takes place within art worlds. Becker's framework is an approach that does not distinguish between high and popular culture but rather is applied to all forms of culture. His framework stands in marked contrast to conventional analyses ...