A cultural sociology of the arts / 2013 By Vera L. Zolberg New York: Editorial Arrangement Recovered from sociopedia.is In general terms, the text covers art from a historical perspective, detailing each of the aspects at a certain time, as well as evidencing the development and evolution of art in relation to society and culture, it is a view of an agent both internal as external with concrete examples, it shares several points of view, mostly critics and discussions around the subject, although it has a little unnecessary filling and a bit tedious. The structure of the text is organized by the compilation of opinions and criticisms of different sociologists, artists and scholars of various topics such as Becker, Bourdieu, Geertz, Dankome, and others; It seems to me that the author should express her point of view more thoroughly, since throughout her writing we can see that she uses the citation a lot, although it is necessary to support some theory, it seems to me that she exceeded herself in one or another appointment. In my judgment, I have a mixed position, why? Because both the writing and the subject is very interesting and appropriate in addition to showing the context specifically and having a lot of information not so well known, but I differ in some of the author's comments, some of which I'll explain later. This text is composed of three parts like any other, starting with a mouths open to what is going to be treated, an explanation of the state of art is made from the point of view of the famous sociologist Bourdieu, who from his writing where highlights the discomfort implicit in the conflict between the belief in the gift of artists and the uniqueness of their creations, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the threat of the impulse of sociology to enter this perspective when trying to explain, contextualize, generalize, as if art were not different from any social product; something that is completely correct in terms of the reference of an artistic product created by and to cover a certain need of society, or in many cases to demonstrate realities seen or not. Adding to this, that the autonomy of the artistic sphere is not uniformly accepted even by the participants of the art world. It is a subject of many debates that have been part of professional sociological and artistic arguments for several centuries. Both the Renaissance and the medieval era had an impact on the practice of creation, so the sponsors arose who were rulers or religious authorities or powerful political leaders, they hoped to be supported by their artists, they came to create new art institutions of marketing that little by little were predominating over sponsorship relationships. However, art and artists still needed material support. Artists had to balance the requirements of material production with an immaterial meaning, reaching a point where finally a marker of high status in relation to art was based on the principle of disinterestedness instead of material gain. This is where the beginnings of commercial art begin, where certain theorists and historians of art try to insert artistic developments in their social context. I would like to emphasize one point in favor of this initial glance, which is the clear explanation of the innovation of art with respect to social and technological evolution, through some means of communication such as printed journalism, television seen in scenarios, movies that are shown in theaters, live performances such as concerts, dance, operas, these related to art forms. Later, the author supports with examples such as when Marcel Duchamp "helped" Leonardo da Vinci by adding a mustache to the reproduction of his Gioconda, and giving it a new look, due to the new artistic change where the academics were not prepared for this so sudden and unleashed several issues. A point against is the reiteration of innovation and change in all aspects of art as time goes by, I think the author focused a lot on showing the evolution, art forms that differ from the previous ones based on social studies, it is somewhat tedious and complex to relate this. As the text develops, begins to relate more thoroughly the concepts of art and sociology, a very important comment is Becker, who started from the premise that making art is not qualitatively different from other social activities. Controversially, he presented the challenging argument that, far from being an individual act, the creation of art should be understood as a collective process, in which the interactions among the participants, of which the named artist is only one, result in the "production" of "works of art". As I had reiterated previously, I disagree in some comments of the author as they are the creation of theories and generalities according to the American sociology, because it pretends to generalize a certain scheme for all, example: Education, religion, ethnicity, to name some, the traditional fine arts have not grown proportionally. This is suggested by the progression of the growth of culture in American sociology with the institutionalization of the field through the formation of the Culture Section. Finally, I want to express the author's impartiality and correct handling of the important aspects proposed at the beginning that were covered in their entirety; is a writing with potential, which examines the various theoretical approaches to the study of the arts and develops a sociological approach that recognizes the importance of aesthetic imperatives and the individual creative process, while assessing the institutional, economic and political influences on creation of art. An important contribution is made to the development of sociology of the arts at a time when the role of the arts in society has become a topic of concern and discussion. I liked it; it was a little more organized in terms of the work scheme, since it is something complex to understand because of its extension and reiteration in several topics that are too long. It is a great help for students of careers related to social sciences and art, and proposes good discussion topics. Reviewed by : Ingrid Lamprea Suarez.
