ART AND PROSPERITY

Although a significant portion of this chapter is, as the title suggests, about the relationship of creativity and the art market, it is more generally about what we have called the “field” of art, which here refers to the productive and organizational dimensions of the art worlds of which these aspiring artists became a part. As Becker (1982) has pointed out, it is important in this context to speak of art worlds rather than an art world, taken as a singular, unified entity, the most basic reason being that there is not one but many such worlds. Moreover, these art worlds frequently operate in very different ways, making different demands and presenting different challenges to those who wish to enter. This does not mean that the notion of a singular art world is irrelevant; as many artists readily testify, the presence of this world is in fact highly relevant, and entry into it a much-sought-after goal. We will nevertheless try to keep in mind the plurality of art worlds as we proceed, if only as a reminder that other goals do indeed exist.

Several other things may be worth keeping in mind as well. As Douglas Davis (1988) has recently argued, in a special issue of Art in America devoted to economic aspects of the contemporary art scene, the market is unquestionably here to stay: “Given artists may fade and the market itself may rise or fall with the state of the economy, but the art marketing system now in place is anchored in the center, not on the margins of society, and therefore is secure” (p. 23).