Managing Autonomy: Analyzing Arts Management and Artistic Autonomy through the Theory of Justification

ABSTRACT

Arts management has commonly been analyzed as a microcosm of the art field, in which struggles between artistic, economic, administrative, and societal considerations are constantly being fought. Using the field theory of Bourdieu, scholars have attempted to uncover levels of functional differentiation within arts organizations, and interpreted differentiation between artistic considerations and economic and administrative considerations as a core element in defining the artistic autonomy of such organizations. In this article, I present an alternative approach to the interpretation of artistic autonomy in arts management. Through the stories of three artistic directors and the way in which they run their theatres, I aim to show the theory of justification (developed by Boltanski and Thévenot) and shed new light on the interpretation of arts management, as well as on the understanding of artistic autonomy more generally.

KEYWORDS:

• Arts management
• autonomy of art
• differentiation
• theory of justification

Notes

1. One exception, however, is the recent book, The Problem of Theatrical Autonomy (Edelman, Hansen, and van der Hoogen 2017), which combines the theory of justification with Bourdieusian field theory.

2. Boltanski and Thévenot present six common worlds in their book On Justification. However, their methodology does not exclude other common worlds. Subsequently, they introduced a project-oriented world (Boltanski and Chiapello 2007) and a green world (Thévenot, Moody, and Lafaye 2000).

3. The study is part of a larger Ph.D. project analyzing differences in theatre policy and theatre organization in these three countries.

4. Publications in this project include Kleppe, Mangset, and Røyseng (2010) and Mangset, Kleppe, and Røyseng (2012).

5. http://www.scenekunst.no/pub/scenekunst/main/?aid=3473 (my translation).

6. In England, some theatres are headed by the artistic director, and some by the executive director.

7. Vikki Heywood was Executive Director of the RSC from 2003 to 2012.

8. One might, of course, question whether there exists something like a pure artistic inspiration. In the theory of Boltanski and Thévenot, it exists as a social construction, and thus as a higher common principle.

9. A more comprehensive analysis of the theatre policy in these three countries may be found in Kleppe (2016).