Andrea Hannah Cooper / OUGD501 / Context of Practice
Publication / Concept Pitch
Theories & Theorists Pierre Bourdieu: - Field and habitus - Cultural capital Irving Goffman: - Impression management Michel Foucault: - Panopticism Clive Bell: - High vs low culture
- Exploring the idea that those who visit museums and art galleries are within the educated upper classes (as noted by Bourdieu’s ethnographic research in France) or members of the working classes who, under the Panoptic gaze and while applying impression management (the process of putting on an act in order to influence the perceptions of other people about a person) are in the gallery as a way of gaining more cultural capital as if to appear more educated and in an attempt to disassociate themselves from the lower classes. - Questioning the idea of aesthetic appreciation and taste, and whether every visitor to a museum or gallery fully appreciates the work on show or in fact simply pretends to appreciate it. - Taking the arguments of the essay answering the question ‘Could it be argued that the appreciation of art comes from the development of cultural capital and cultivated taste, or does it simply stem from the implementation of impression management?’ and applying them to a gallery setting as a way of questioning the audience in response to the theories and making the visitors to the museum/gallery consider the ideas and arguments themselves.
Content for Publication
Aesthetics
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