Privatising Culture by Chin-Tao Wu
Corporate sponsorship and business involvement in the visual arts have become increasingly common features in our cultural lives. From Absolut Vodka's sponsorship of art shows to ABN-AMRO Bank's branding of Van Gough's self-portrait to advertise its credit cards, we have born witness to a new sort of patronage, in which the marriage of individual talent with multinational marketing is beginning to blur the comfortable old distinctions between public and private. Chin-tao Wu's book is the first concerted attempt to detail the various ways in which business values and the free-market ethos have come to permeate the sphere of the visual arts since the 1980s. charting the various shifts in public policy which first facilitated the entry of major corporations into the cultural sphere, it analyses the roles of governments in injecting the principles of the free market into public arts agencies-in particular the Arts Council in Great Britain and the National Endowment for the Arts in the USA. It goes on to study the corporate take-over of art museums, highlighting the ways in which ;cultural capital' can be garnered by various social and business 'elites' through commercial involvement in the arts, and shows how corporations have succeeded in integrating themselves into the infrastructure of the art world itself by showcasing contemporary art in their own corporate premises. Mapping for the first time the increasingly hegemonic position that corporations and corporate elites have come to occupy in the cultural arena, this is a provocative contribution to the debate on public culture in Britain and America.
.. a meticulous account of the dominance of capital itself over the human spirit. The patrons of postmodernity are not white patriarchs of the haute bourgeoisie, aiming to bolster their privilege by imposing timeless, conservative verities on the masses. Instead, they transmit their values by sponsoring art which is disorienting, shocking, rebellious and cool. If anyone still wants to criticize the morality of the marketplace, they must also develop a critique of this commercial aesthetic. Chin-tao Wu's book is an excellent place to start. * Times Literary Supplement *
A book which will long be of use to anyone who wants to understand the genetic character of contemporary culture. It presents an analysis which is methodical, detailed and clear. As a consequence, it is of great critical power. -- Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden * Art & Language *
A profoundly original and extremely important contribution to the study of corporate interests as they seek to benefit from and reshape the art world. -- Carol Duncan, Professor of Art History, Ramapo College of New Jersey
A superbly researched and invigorating study. * Library Journal *
Sobering and incisive ... Wu convincingly tells an ugly story of seduction and betrayal, one which anyone who cares about the future of art needs to hear. * Publishers Weekly *
A book which will long be of use to anyone who wants to understand the genetic character of contemporary culture. It presents an analysis which is methodical, detailed and clear. As a consequence, it is of great critical power. -- Michael Baldwin and Mel Ramsden * Art & Language *
A profoundly original and extremely important contribution to the study of corporate interests as they seek to benefit from and reshape the art world. -- Carol Duncan, Professor of Art History, Ramapo College of New Jersey
A superbly researched and invigorating study. * Library Journal *
Sobering and incisive ... Wu convincingly tells an ugly story of seduction and betrayal, one which anyone who cares about the future of art needs to hear. * Publishers Weekly *
Chin-tao Wu specialises in contemporary art and culture, and has contributed to New Left Review and Kunst und Politik: Jahrbuch der Guernica-Gesellschaft. She is an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London and currently teaches at Nanhua University in Taiwan.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781859846131 |
| ISBN 10 | 1859846130 |
| Title | Privatising Culture |
| Author | Chin-Tao Wu |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Verso Books |
| Year published | 2002-05-17 |
| Number of pages | 410 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |