Prior to the 1980s, the postwar canon of “international” contemporary art was made up almost exclusively of artists from North America and Western Europe, while cultural agents from other parts of the world often found themselves on the margins. The Global Rules of Art examines how this discriminatory situation has changed in recent decades. Drawing from abundant sources—including objective indicators from more than one hundred countries, multiple institutional histories and discourses, extensive fieldwork, and interviews with artists, critics, curators, gallerists, and auction house agents—Larissa Buchholz examines the emergence of a world-spanning art field whose logics have increasingly become defined in global terms.
Deftly blending comprehensive historical analyses with illuminating case studies, The Global Rules of Art breaks new ground in its exploration of valuation and how cultural hierarchies take shape in a global context. The book’s innovative global field approach will appeal to scholars in the sociology of art, cultural and economic sociology, interdisciplinary global studies, and anyone interested in the dynamics of global art and culture.
Larissa Buchholz is assistant professor of communication studies and, by courtesy, sociology at Northwestern University. She was a junior fellow at the Society of Fellows at Harvard University, the first woman elected from her discipline. She serves on the editorial board of Sociological Theory and is an affiliated faculty member of the Critical Realism Network at Yale University.
“At once lucid, rigorous, sweeping, and innovative, The Global Rules of Art is a true tour de force, a must-read for cultural sociologists, art historians, social theorists, and scholars of globalization. A stunning achievement that sets a new standard for sociological analysis.”—Philip Gorski, Yale University
“A remarkable examination of the globalization of the art world over the past forty years and the new questions and forces with which it is confronted today. Adapting what Pierre Bourdieu called the ‘rules of art’ to the new geographies and internal tensions in this expanded field, this magisterial analysis exemplifies the vital role that a systemic sociology of culture can play for us today.”—John A. Rajchman, Columbia University
“Impressive and important. The Global Rules of Art is exquisitely written and theoretically and empirically exceptional.”—Clayton Childress, author of Under the Cover: The Creation, Production, and Reception of a Novel
“With polished, sophisticated prose and a dazzling command of her subject, Buchholz provides a novel explanation of how the international contemporary art world expanded and diversified from the 1980s to today. The Global Rules of Art is a stunning scholarly achievement.”—Fiona Greenland, author of Ruling Culture: Art Police, Tomb Robbers, and the Rise of Cultural Power in Italy