Department of Sociology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Br J Sociol. 2020 Nov;71(5):952-969. doi: 10.1111/1468-4446.12787. Epub 2020 Sep 19.
Inspired by French pragmatism and using Bourdieu's notion of "refraction" as an indication of a field's autonomy, we explore in-depth what kinds of justifications visual artists deploy to legitimate their requests for government money. Based on 494 government grant proposals from visual artists between 1965 and 2015 in Belgium, we find six such justifications. The reputational, esthetic, and romantic justifications are grounded in autonomous criteria of worth, such as artistic CVs, the work of art itself, and a compulsive desire to make art. Since the 90s, social, academic, and entrepreneurial justifications bring in heteronomous criteria, or refractions of field-external values. Artistic practices become increasingly legitimized through engagement with social/political issues, academic methods and terminology, and an entrepreneurial spirit. We empirically show how the refraction of governmental logics is multi-faceted, yet always related to or combined with artistic concerns, which we interpret as characteristic for the artistic field's persisting autonomy in the face of heteronomous pressures.
受法国实用主义的启发，并借鉴布尔迪厄的“折射”概念来表明一个领域的自主性，我们深入探讨视觉艺术家为争取政府资金而采用的各种理由。基于 1965 年至 2015 年间比利时 494 位视觉艺术家的 494 份政府拨款申请，我们发现了六种这样的理由。声誉、审美和浪漫的理由基于自主的价值标准，例如艺术简历、艺术作品本身以及创作艺术的强迫性欲望。自 90 年代以来，社会、学术和创业的理由引入了外部标准，或者说是领域外部价值的折射。艺术实践通过与社会/政治问题、学术方法和术语以及创业精神的结合，越来越具有合法性。我们从经验上展示了政府逻辑的折射是多方面的，但始终与艺术关注相关联或相结合，我们将其解释为艺术领域在面对外部压力时保持自主性的特征。
