Abstract
In this book Dagmar Danko develops a way of introducing the sociology of art that, on the one hand, sticks to received distinctions such as reception and production, but that also works through these on the basis of extended discussions of theorists. That means her book steers clear of empirical research but sketches the main theoretical problems in the study of the relationship between art and society. Danko presents a range of seminal thinkers who focused on the relationship between art and society, and in so doing focuses on three things: 1) the meaning of art for society (the question of critique, which for Danko here is a privileged way of discussing the process of reception); 2) the analysis of the artistic work (which for Danko is the somewhat limiting substance of the process of production); 3) analysis of the field or system of art (the analysis of the institution, which most authors regularly subsume under the process of production) (pp. 26, 257).
In Chapter 1 of Part I, Danko illustrates how Bourdieu, especially in his dialogue with Hans Haacke, conceives of a critical function of art. She rightly points out, in line with Nathalie Heinich, the tension between Bourdieu’s critical analysis of the field of art as autonomous and characterized by a ‘charismatic illusion’ and his support for a critical art (p. 53). Chapter 2 of Part I deals with Habermas, who is much less plagued by such a ‘double discourse’, because for Habermas art has a role to play in the emancipatory project of an increasingly rational discourse. Habermas is shown especially to critique the blurring of the boundary between art and everyday life (pp. 72–5).
In Part II, Danko discusses the work of Lyotard, Derrida and Deleuze. She illustrates how Lyotard vehemently critiques Habermas for clinging to a single, universal form of rational discourse (p. 97). An interest in dissensus thus replaces consensus and, unlike in Bourdieu, art is valued for its experimentation rather than its emancipation. Danko then offers an insightful discussion of the role of art in Deleuze’s work. Deleuze derives from art a model for philosophy which, like art, should break with representation and move towards abstraction (p. 129). Philosophy equals art in the sense that it concerns an act of creation, in this case of concepts (p. 146). One might say art functions as ‘counter-intelligence’ against actual assemblages of power, but this is not the critical and emancipatory function Bourdieu and Habermas subscribe to. It is rather a critique irreducible to communication and emancipation, a subversiveness that cannot be captured in a project of enlightenment.
As Danko illustrates next, Derrida was drawn to art and literature because for him these represented the Other of philosophy and science, whose hegemony the notion of deconstruction was to unravel (p. 186). As in Lyotard and in Deleuze, Danko argues, the unsaid and the invisible are brought to the fore by Derrida in his conception of art. Danko concludes her chapter on Derrida with a discussion of Bourdieu’s critique of Derrida’s philosophical position. She argues that Bourdieu misunderstood Derrida’s central claims (p. 182), and she is no doubt correct here, but she might have paid attention to what a truly Bourdieusian analysis of Derrida’s position in the field of philosophy would look like, other than the polemic at the end of La Distinction.
The place to do so would have been Part V of the book, which turns towards the sociological analysis of the institution(s) of art. Bourdieu has certainly paid much attention to this, but Danko has decided to restrict her discussion here to Luhmann and Baudrillard. Chapter 1 in this final part of the book deals with Luhmann’s systems theory as applied to art, for instance in Die Kunst der Gesellschaft (Art as a Social System). After a general introduction to Luhmann’s main themes, Danko illustrates what Luhmann understands by ‘the system of art’. Danko explains that Luhmann understands the work of art itself to be communication (p. 197). She rightly states that Luhmann personalizes the work of art when he states that it composes itself with the help of the artist (who is regarded by Luhmann as a ‘machine for the generation of coincidences’ – p. 214). Less accurate is her critique of Luhmann’s statement that the selling of artworks does not change them (pp. 215–16). For Luhmann, commerce concerns the system of the economy, which does not directly affect the system of art.
The second and last chapter of this third part of Danko’s book is devoted to Baudrillard, who has on many occasions engaged in discussions of a variety of art forms, and who – as the work of Deleuze does today – has exerted wide influence in the world of art itself. Here too Danko highlights the problematization of representation common to the theorists discussed in Part II. After focusing on the circulation of art in the logic of the society of consumption, Danko shows how Baudrillard turns next to the disappearance of art (p. 234). Nonetheless, in the final part of her book, entitled ‘Ausblick’, Danko holds that basically all the strands in the work of the theorists she has discussed in her book come together in Baudrillard (p. 274). That is to be doubted, as Baudrillard’s conceptions tend to uncoil into a repetition that hardly allows for the highlighting of difference.
I also wonder whether Baudrillard really provides an account of the institution of art. The same can be asked with regard to Luhmann. Throughout the chapter on Luhmann, for instance, Danko illustrates Luhmann’s closeness to Derrida, sometimes to Lyotard, and his commonalities and conflict with Habermas. She does not engage in a confrontation with Bourdieu, who provides a possible ‘institutional’ supplement to Luhmann’s conception of the system of art. One may wonder, then, whether Luhmann might not actually have been better placed in the second part of the book.
This raises another issue, which is that of selection. Selections are necessarily contingent, but Danko provides us with what one could call the Franco-German axis in the social theory of art, which poses various limitations. Also I wonder whether the focus on theorists does not in the end undermine the thematic interest Danko has in her book. Conceptions of critique, production and the institution of art might have been better articulated by putting them centre-stage, and then bringing in the work of recent theorists, although that would have meant skipping the many insightful introductions to the work of these theorists that Danko’s chapters contain. Finally, one can wonder what is gained by restricting the discussion to ‘contemporary art’. This concept could for starters be much more problematized but, what is more, one wonders what importance it carries for an understanding of the engagement of the selected theorists with art.
But these are tangential remarks really. In any selection, one could have done differently, and what is relevant in the end is the quality of what is actually there. And here Danko certainly delivers. Reading her book is insightful both with respect to social theory and philosophy and with respect to the relation between art and society. It merits more attention than it may receive, given that it is written in German. I would hope to see it translated, as it provides an overview that will prove helpful to many students and scholars of contemporary art.