Arts in Society: Being an Artist in Post-fordist Times (2009)

This is a much recommended and up to date book for people interested in themes like artistic labour,creative economy and post-Fordism.It throws insights into the ways that artists and critics from distinct backgrounds respond to the theoretical framework of post-Fordism-set in the first two texts by the philosophers Paulo Virno and Michael Hardt .



A very nice piece of argumentation-seemingly slightly irrelevant with post-fordism but still useful to frame the debate on artistic autonomy, which is supposed to be gone forever with the rise of 'creative economy', is to be found in Laermans' exceptional text "Artistic Autonomy as Value and Practice".In discussing the nature of artistic autonomy, Laermans argues that the art field is actually dominated by a highly moralistic ethos (something which is not bad at all but still not widely admitted within the artworld):

.....no artistic autonomy without a predominantly artistic intention of the maker.Since the individual intentions are not directly accessible, one can endlessly speculate about the motives of successful artists.This is precisely what constantly happens in art worlds,particularly during openings or after premières. Members of an art world not only take pleasure in discussing the aesthetic merits of works of art,but also greatly enjoy the many anecdotes that may prove or disprove the sincerity of artist's intentions.

Anything but neutral,the speculation surrounding the underlying motives of the artists is generally highly moralistic because the expectation is that an artistic intention should prevail.If that's not the case,an artist may still act in an independent way but has sacrificed her artistic autonomy and is therefore no longer regarded as genuine artist.In short it is expected of artists that their creations attest to a value rationality that commits itself to the ideal of artistic autonomy:the freedom to explore a primarily artistic interest.