Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Howard S. Becker
American Sociological Review, Vol. 39, No. 6. (Dec., 1974), pp. 767-776.
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AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
DECEMBER, 1974 V O L U M E 3 9 , NO. 6
Art works can be conceived as the product of the cooperative activity of many people. Some of
these people are customarily defined as artists, others as support personnel. The artist's
dependence on support personnel constraiizs the range of artistic possibilities available to him.
Cooperation is mediated by the use of artistic conventions, whose existence both makes the
production o f work easier and innovation more difficult. Artistic innovations occur when artists
discover alternate means of assembling the resources necessary. This conception of an art world
made up o f personnel cooperating via conventions has implications for the sociological analysis
of social organization.
all the decisions that must be made with of conventions that artists and audiences can
respect to works produced in a given art refer to in making sense of the work.
world, even though a particular convention Conventions make art possible in another
may be revised for a given work. Thus, sense. Because decisions can be made quickly,
conventions dictate the materials to be used, because plans can be made simply by referring
as when musicians agree to base their music to a conventional way of doing things, artists
on the notes contained in a set of modes, or can devote more time to actually doing their
on the diatonic, pentatonic or chromatic work. Conventions thus make possible the
scales with their associated harmonies. Con- easy and efficient coordination of activity
ventions dictate the abstractions to be used to among artists and support personnel. Ivins
convey particular ideas or experiences, as (1953), for instance, shows how, by using a
when painters use the laws of perspective to conventionalized scheme for rendering shad-
convey the illusion of three dimensions or ows, modeling and other effects, several
photographers use black, white and shades of graphic artists could collaborate in producing
gray to convey the interplay of light and a single plate. The same conventions made it
color. Conventions dictate the form in which possible for viewers to read what were
materials and abstractions will be combined, essentially arbitrary marks as shadows and
as in the musical use of the sonata form or the modeling. Seen this way, the concept of
poetic use of the sonnet. Conventions suggest convention provides a point of contact
the appropriate dimensions of a work, the between humanists and sociologists, being
proper length for a musical or dramatic event, interchangeable with such familiar sociological
the proper size and shape of a painting or ideas as norm, rule, shared understanding,
sculpture. Conventions regulate the relations custom or folkway, all referring in one way or
between artists and audience, specifying the another to the ideas and understandings
rights and obligations of both. people hold in common and through which
Humanistic scholars-art historians, music- they effect cooperative activity. Burlesque
ologists and literary critics-have found the comedians could stage elaborate three man
concept of the artistic convention useful in skits without rehearsal because they had only
accounting for artists' ability to produce art to refer to a conventional body of skits they
works which produce an emotional response all knew, pick one and assign the parts. Dance
in audiences. By using such a conventional musicians who are total strangers can play all
organization of tones as a scale, the composer night with no more prearrangement than to
can create and manipulate the listener's mention a title ("Sunny Side of the Street,"
expectations as to what sounds will follow. He in C) and count off four beats to give the
can then delay and frustrate the satisfaction tempo; the title indicates a melody, its
of those expectations, generating tension and accompanying harmony and perhaps even
release as the expectation is ultimately customary background figures. The conven-
satisfied (Meyer, 1956, 1973; Cooper and tions of character and dramatic structure. in
Meyer, 1960). Only because artist and the one case, and of melody, harmony and
audience share knowledge of and experience tempo, in the other, are familiar enough that
with the conventions invoked does the art audiences have no difficulty in responding
work produce an emotional effect. Smith appropriately.
(1968) has shown how poets manipulate Though standardized, conventions are
conventional means embodied in poetic forms seldom rigid and unchanging. They do not
and diction to bring poems to a clear and specify an inviolate set of rules everyone must
satisfying conclusion, in which the expecta- refer to in settling questions of what to do.
tions produced early in the lyric are Even where the directions seem quite specific,
simultaneously and satisfactorily resolved. they leave much unsettled which gets resolved
Gombrich (1960) has analyzed the visual by reference to customary modes of interpre-
conventions artists use to create the illusion tation on the one hand and by negotiation on
for viewers that they are seeing a realistic the other. A tradition of performance
depiction of some aspect of the world. In all practice, often codified in book form, tells
these cases (and in others like stage design, performers how to interpret the musical
dance, and fdm), the possibility of artistic scores or dramatic scripts they perform.
experience arises from the existence of a body Seventeenth century scores, for instance,
772 AMERICAN SOCI()LOGICAL REVIEW
contained relatively little information; but hours of rehearsal, forty-two tone music
contemporary books explained how to deal requires much more work, time, effort and
with questions of instrumentation, note resources. Partch's music has typically come
values, extemporization and the realization of to be performed in the following way: a
embellishments and ornaments. Performers university invites him to spend a year. In the
read their music in the light of all these fall, he recruits a group of interested students,
customary styles of interpretation and thus who build the instruments (which he has
were able to coordinate their activities (Dart, already invented) under his direction. In the
1967). The same thing occurs in the visual winter, they learn to play the instruments and
arts. Much of the content, symbolism and read the notation he has devised. In the
coloring of Italian Renaissance religious spring, they rehearse several works and finally
painting was conventionally given; but a give a performance. Seven or eight months of
multitude of decisions remained for the artist, work finally result in two hours of music,
so that even within those strict conventions hours which could have been filled with other
different works could be produced. Adhering music after eight to ten hours of rehearsal by
to the conventional materials, however, trained symphonic musicians playing the
allowed viewers to read much emotion and standard repertoire. The difference in the
meaning into the picture. Even where resources required measures the strength of
customary interpretations of conventions the constraint imposed by the conventional
exist, having become conventions themselves, system.
artists can agree to do things differently, Similarly, conventions specifying what a
negotiation making change possible. good photograph should look like are
Conventions place strong constraints on embodied not only in an aesthetic more or
the artist. They are particularly constraining less accepted in the world of art photography
because they do not exist in isolation, but (Rosenblum, 1973), but also in the accep-
come in complexly interdependent systems, tance of the constraints built into the neatly
so that making one small change often interwoven complex of standardized equip-
requires making changes in a variety of other ment and materials made by major manu-
activities. A system of conventions gets facturers. Available lenses, camera bodies,
embodied in equipment, materials, training, shutter speeds, apertures, fdms, and printing
available facilities and sites, systems of paper all constitute a tiny fraction of the
notation and the like, all of which must be things that could be made, a selection that can
changed if any one segment is. be used together to produce acceptable prints;
Consider what a change from the conven- with ingenuity they can also be used to
tional western chromatic musical scale of produce effects their purveyors did not have
twelve tones to one including forty-two tones in mind. But some kinds of prints, once
between the octaves entails. Such a change common, can now only be produced with
characterizes the compositions of Harry great difficulty because the materials are no
Partch (1949). Western musical instruments longer available. Specifically, the photosensi-
cannot produce these microtones easily and tive material in conventional papers is a silver
some cannot produce them at all, so salt, which produces a characteristic look.
conventional instruments must be recon- Photographers once printed on paper sensi-
structed (as Partch does) or new instruments tized with platinum salts, until it went off the
must be invented and built. Since the market in 1937 (Newhall, 1964, p. 117). You
instruments are new, no one knows how to can still make platinum prints, which have a
play them, and players must train themselves. distinctively softer look, but only by making
Conventional Western notation is inadequate your own paper. Not surprisingly, most
to score forty-two tone music, so a new photographers accept the constraint and learn
notation must be devised, and players must to maximize the effects that can be obtained
learn to read it. (Comparable resources can be from available silver-based materials. They
taken as given by anyone who writes for the likewise prize the standardization and de-
conventional twelve chromatic tones). Con- pendability of mass-produced materials; a roll
sequently, whereas a performance of music of Kodak Tri-X film purchased anywhere in
scored for the conventional set of tones can the world has approximately the same
be performed adequately after relatively few characteristics and will produce the same
ART AS COLLEC:TIVE ACTION 773
results as any other roll, that being the dispose artists in one direction or the other.
opportunity that is the obverse of the Interdependent systems of conventions and
constraint. structures of cooperative links appear very
The limitations of conventional practice, stable and difficult to change. In fact, though
clearly, are not total. One can always do arts sometimes experience periods of stasis,
things differently if one is prepared to pay the that does not mean that no change or
price in increased effort or decreased circula- innovation occurs (Meyer, 1967). Small
tion of one's work. The experience of innovations occur constantly, as conventional
composer Charles Ives exemplifies the latter means of creating expectations and delaying
possibility. He experimented with their satisfaction become so well-known as t o
polytonality and polyrhythms before they become conventional expectations in their
became part of the ordinary performer's own right. Meyer (1956) analyzes this process
competence. The New York players who tried and gives a nice example in the use of vibrato
to play his chamber and orchestral music told by string instrument players. At one time,
him that it was unplayable, that their string players used no vibrato, introducing it
instruments could not make those sounds, on rare occasions as a deviation from
that the scores could not be played in any convention which heightened tension and
practical way. Ives finally accepted their created emotional response by virtue of its
judgment, but continued to compose such rarity. String players who wished to excite
music. What makes his case interesting is that. such an emotional response began using
according to his biographers (Cowell and vibrato more and more often until the way to
Cowell, 1954), though he was also bitter excite the emotional response it had once
about it, he experienced this as a great produced was to play without vibrato, a
liberation. If no one could play his music, device that Bartok and other composers
then he no longer had to write music that exploited. Meyer describes the process by
musicians could play, no longer had to accept which deviations from convention become
the constraints imposed by the conventions accepted conventions in their own right as a
that regulated cooperation between con- common one.
temporary composer and player. Since, for Such changes are a kind of gradualist
instance, his music would not be played. he reform in a persisting artistic tradition.
never needed to finish it; he was quite Broader, more disruptive changes also occur,
unwilling to confirm John Kirkpatrick's bearing a marked resemblance to political and
pioneer reading of the Concord Sonata as a scientific revolutions (Kuhn, 1962). Any
correct one because that would mean that he major change necessarily attacks some of the
could no longer change it. Nor did he have to existing conventions of the art directly, as
accommodate his writing to the practical when the Impressionists or Cubists changed
constraints of what could be financed by the existing visual language of painting, the
conventional means, and so he wrote his way one read paint on canvas as a
Fourth Symphony for three orchestras. (That representation of something. An attack on
impracticality lessened with time; Leonard convention does not merely mean an attack
Bernstein premiered the work in 1958 and it on the particular item to be changed. Every
has been played many times since.) convention carries with it an aesthetic,
In general, breaking with existing conven- according to which what is conventional
tions and their manifestations in social becomes the standard by which artistic beauty
structure and material artifacts increases the and effectiveness is judged. A play which
artist's trouble and decreases the circulation violates the classical unities is not merely
of his work, on the one hand, but at the same different, it is distasteful. barbaric and ugly to
time increases his freedom to choose uncon- those for whom the classical unities represent
ventional alternatives and to depart substan- a fixed criterion of dramatic worth. An attack
tially from customary practice. If that is true, on a convention becomes an attack on the
we can understand any work as the product of aesthetic related to it. But people do not
a choice between conventional ease and experience their aesthetic beliefs as merely
success and unconventional trouble and lack arbitrary and conventional; they feel that they
of recognition, looking for the experiences are natural. proper and moral. An attack on a
and situational and structural elements that conver'ion ,ind an aesthetic is also an attack
774 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW
on a morality. The regularity with which movements lose the power to choose which
audiences greet major changes in dramatic, works will be displayed, for their museums are
musical and visual conventions with vitupera- unnecessary for displaying those works.
tive hostility indicates the close relation Everyone involved in the museum-collectable
between aesthetic and moral belief (Kubler, kind of art (collectors, museum curators,
1962). galleries, dealers, artists) loses something. We
An attack on sacred aesthetic beliefs as might say that every cooperative network that
embodied in particular conventions is, finally, constitutes an art world creates value by the
an attack on an existing arrangement of agreement of its members as to what is
ranked statuses, a stratification system.3 valuable (Levine, 1972; Christopherson,
Remember that the conventional way of 1974). When new people successfully create a
doing things in any art utilizes an existing new world which defines other conventions as
cooperative network, an organized art world embodying artistic value, all the participants
which rewards those who manipulate the in the old world who cannot make a place in
existing conventions appropriately in light of the new one lose out.
the associated sacred aesthetic. Suppose that a Every art world develops standardized
dance world is organized around the conven- modes of support and artists who support
tions and skills embodied in classical ballet. If their work through those conventional means
I then learn those conventions and skills, I develop an aesthetic which accepts the
become eligible for positions in the best ballet constraints embedded in those forms of
companies; the finest choreographers will cooperation. Rosenblum (1973) has shown
create ballets for me that are just the kind I that the aesthetic of photographers varies with
know how to dance and will look good in; the the economic channels through which their
best composers will write scores for me; work is distributed in the same way that their
theaters will be avadable; I will earn as good a customary work styles do, and Lyon (1974)
living as a dancer can earn; audiences will love has analyzed the interdependence of aesthetic
me and I will be famous. Anyone who decisions and the means by which resources
successfully promotes a new convention in are gathered in a semi-professional theater
which he is skilled and I am not attacks not group. One example will illustrate the nature
only my aesthetic but also my high position in of the dependence. The group depended on
the world of dance. So the resistance to the volunteer help to get necessary work done.
new expresses the anger of those who will lose But people volunteered for non-artistic kinds
materially by the change, in the form of of work largely because they hoped eventually
aesthetic outrage. to get a part in a play and gain some acting
Others than the artist have something experience. The people who ran the company
invested in the status quo which a change in soon accumulated manv such debts and were
accepted conventions will lose them. Consider constrained to choose plays with relatively
earthworks made, for instance, by a bulldozer large casts to pay them off."
in a square mile of pasture. Such a sculpture
cannot be collected (though a patron can pay CONCLUSION
for its construction and receive signed plans or If we focus on a specific art work, it proves
photographs as a document of his patronage), useful to think of social organization as a
or put in museums (though the mementos the network of people who cooperate to produce
collector receives can be displayed). If that work. We see that the same people often
earthworks become an important art form, cooperate repeatedly, even routinely, in
the museum personnel whose evaluations of similar ways to produce similar works. They
museum-collectable art have had i m ~ o r t a n t organize their cooperation by referring to the
consequences for the careers of artists and art conventions current among those who partici-
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[Footnotes]
1
The Artworld
Arthur Danto
The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 61, No. 19, American Philosophical Association Eastern Division
Sixty-First Annual Meeting. (Oct. 15, 1964), pp. 571-584.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X%2819641015%2961%3A19%3C571%3ATA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6
4
Processing Fads and Fashions: An Organization-Set Analysis of Cultural Industry Systems
Paul M. Hirsch
The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 77, No. 4. (Jan., 1972), pp. 639-659.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-9602%28197201%2977%3A4%3C639%3APFAFAO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E
Bibliography
NOTE: The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list.
http://www.jstor.org
LINKED CITATIONS
- Page 2 of 2 -
The Artworld
Arthur Danto
The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 61, No. 19, American Philosophical Association Eastern Division
Sixty-First Annual Meeting. (Oct. 15, 1964), pp. 571-584.
Stable URL:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-362X%2819641015%2961%3A19%3C571%3ATA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6
NOTE: The reference numbering from the original has been maintained in this citation list.