OTHER PLAYERS IN THE

WORLD OF ART
ART WORLD
•The terrain the artist traverses is increasingly
complex.
•In last century, some of the roles have been
existent since the beginning of art
• Legitimized into a sophisticated network of
relationships and exchanges.
• “ART WORLD”
 “all artistic work… involves the joint activity of a number … of
people…. the artwork we eventually see or hear comes to be and
continues to be. The work always shows signs of that cooperation.
The forms of cooperation may be EPHEMERAL, but often become
more or less routine; producing patterns of collective activity we can
call an art world. The existence of art worlds …affects both the
production and consumption of artworks, suggests a sociological
approach to the arts. It is not an approach that produces aesthetic
judgments; although that is a task many sociologists of art have set for
themselves.”
Howard S. Becker’s Art Worlds
Artist works in SOLITARY.
• This would necessitate the seemingly central position that the artist
enjoys in the grand scheme of art experience.
• The CURATOR
• Becker contended, there are numerous people who either work in
consent or dissension continuously (re)-define, (in)validate, maintain
(or abolish), reproduce, and circulate the "cultural category of art,
and produce the consent of the entire society in the legitimacy of
the art world's authority to do so" (Irvine, 2013)
ART WORLD
• The terrain where art is distributed is a Global
network
• The art world does not only rely on ideas,
sentiments, and aesthetic values, but also on
skills that are professionalized, stratified, and
more importantly, monetized
• International art fair like the Art Basel in Hong
Kong
ROLES IN THE ART WORLD
•With the complexity of the art world, players
are no longer limited to those who undertook
formal instruction in either production and/or
study of art
• Administrative or managerial roles
• Working boards; directors and assistant directors;
managing curators; and other posts whose interest
is the management and operations of museums,
galleries and other art spaces.
Working Boards
• Independent artists as "stable artists" require the assistance of an artist
manager in order to manage their career and sometimes to help them
in promoting themselves to the art world as well.
CURATOR
• A curator is one of the most elusive of roles to pin down.
• Institutional curators are typically affiliated with museums and
galleries
• Independent (or freelance) curators have the leeway to move around
various projects, platform, and art spaces in a multiplicity of terms
• Generally, the role of the curator is more of the interpretation and
development of the artwork(s)
BUYER, COLLECTOR AND ART
DEALERS
• Buyers and collectors are the easiest to define
• Often they are construed as one and the same
• BUYERS are those initially assess and survey the artwork that
collectors are interested in.
• It is their role to oversee the sale of the artwork
• Buyers and collectors are those who acquire and purchase artworks for
a variety of reasons
• For the appreciation and enjoyment of art; for scholarhip and education
opportunity; for safe guard and preservation of their posterity; for investment;
for communicating a way of life etc
BUYER, COLLECTOR AND ART
DEALERS
• COLLECTORS are becoming more involved well beyond extending
their wallets
• A collector who has established himself as someone who not only
appreciates art but knows art, understands it behavior and patterns,
becoming a key player in making or breaking an artist's career or
shaping the course of a museum's collection
BUYER, COLLECTOR AND ART
DEALERS
• ART DEALERS are those whose direct is in the distribution and
circulation of the artworks through variety of means
• Direct sales, galleries, auction houses
• The knowledge and insight of that art dealers are expected to have
include a specialization in art forms, style, medium, or period; market
trends; and even the interrelationships of other key players in the art
world.
• There are some overlaps in the way buyers, collectors, and dealers
operate and behave
• In the Philippines, delineation of roles is a bit ambiguous.
ART WORLD AS SOCIO-ECONOMIC
NETWORK
• It is important to note the major difference between museum and
galleries.
• They behave in different ways
• The most substantial demarcation that separates one from the other is
the ETHICS
• Ethics that admonishes museums from entering into the more market
aspect of the art world.
• Museums should involve themselves in the sale of artworks
• Museums are mandated to display artworks for education and
appreciation only
• Lectures, workshops, screening etc