Quotes from Art Worlds — Howard S. Becker
1928–2023 United States
← All quotes by Howard S. Becker
7 quotes
I think it is generally true that sociology does not discover what no one ever knew before.
Art Worlds (1982)
(Art worlds) consist of all the people whose activities are necessary to the production of the characteristic works which that world, and perhaps others as well, define as art.
Art Worlds (1982)
All artistic work, like all human activity, involves the joint activity of a number, often a large number of people. Through their cooperation, the art work we eventually see or hear comes to be and continues to be. The work always shows signs of that cooperation.
Art Worlds (1982)
[ Folk art, consists of] work done by ordinary people in the course of their lives, work seldom thought of by those who make or use it as art at all.
Art Worlds (1982)
The audience is unpredictable, and the people who produce and distribute the artistic work have no real contact with it. They market the work in large quantities as with books and records, or through a mechanical system, as with radio and television, so that they could not, if they tried, know audience members personally.
Art Worlds (1982)
The dominant tradition in the sociology of art... defines art as something more special, in which creativity comes to the surface and the essential character if the society expresses itself, especially in the great work of the genius.
Art Worlds (1982)
John Cage said that music is the moral evaluation of sound. We might generalize his remark: when we speak of art, we make a moral evaluation of the relative worth of the various contributions to a work. It is no surprise that many of the participants differ with more conventional evaluations and rank their own contributions as more important than that of the artist as conventionally defined.
Art Worlds (1982)