When sociology meets the work of art

analytical frameworks to study artistic production and reception

pp. 95-114

in: Michael Barber, Jochen Dreher (eds), The interrelation of phenomenology, social sciences and the arts, Berlin, Springer, 2014

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the implications of sociological perspectives for studying the work of art, both in relation to its production and reception and to its ability to inscribe events in the public discourse. In the first perspective – the social construction of the arts – the relationship of the arts with other disciplines, such as semiotics and structuralism, is analysed and discussed. In the second perspective – the artistic construction of the meanings of public events – artwork is viewed as a code able to shape, for example, the content of public memories. This essay will question the romantic conception of a work of art, emphasizing the inability of this notion to explain, on a sociological level, the processes of artistic production and artistic reception.