Evaluating artistic work: Balancing competing perspectives

Abstract

The artist is frequently uncertain, when he or she begins to create a work, how the completed work will look or sound. However, the corporate business model, which is premised on a rational and instrumental worldview, suggests that in a market environment, art should be evaluated objectively, based on clearly stated and measurable objectives – often prior to that work being commenced. This paper explores the difficulties that art has in fitting into a corporatist worldview. First, the paper examines the historical materialization of the corporate model, and how it has infiltrated non‐profit arts. Second, the paper investigates the likely reasons as to why instrumental rationality and managerialism have been embraced so enthusiastically by bureaucrats, arts marketers and funders. And third, the paper suggests a research approach by which artists, managers and audiences can evaluate art within a framework that is sympathetic to the art and the artist.

Keywords:

• art evaluation
• corporatism
• instrumental rationalism

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the editorial panel for their feedback and support for this paper, and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful criticisms that assisted the author to refine the key arguments in the paper. The author also wishes to thank the Editorial Board of Consumption Markets and Culture for commissioning this special issue into this important and interesting area of enquiry.

Notes

1. In referring to arts organizations, I am predominantly focusing on non‐profit, government‐funded arts and cultural organizations. However, many of the arguments presented in this paper could be translated to the commercial arts arena, as well as the individual artist.