Bourdieu's "Historical genesis of a pure aesthetics" as a critique of Dickie's institutional analysis
Abstract
This article focuses on the connection between George Dickie's institutional theory of art and Pierre Bourdieu's concept of "fields". The autor considers Bourdieu's article "The Historical Genesis of a Pure Aesthetics" (1987) as a critique of Dickie's institutional analysis.The first part of the article presents two aspects of Dickie's theorie which were criticized by Bourdieu- the historical dimension of the artworld and the problem of the genesis of the artist.
The second part compares Bourdieu's objections and Dickie's formulation of the two versions of his institutional theory of art, first published in 1969 and then, in revisited version, in The Art Circle in 1984. The author argues that although Dickie does not totally neglect the historical dimension of the art institution, he fails to discern the true importance of its role, and that the artist's genesis is reflected in the later version of Dickie's theory but without real attention to the social background.
She therefore seeks to demonstrate that Dickie's theory offers answers to Bourdieu's two objections, but these answers cannot be satisfactory without paying attention to the artworld's dependance on the world we inhabit.