Power in the Field of Art School Professors: The Role of Symbolic, Social, Cultural and Economic Capital
German art schools enjoy a high level of recognition in the international art world. This is hardly surprising considering that the world's most renowned and expensive contemporary artists regularly include names who have studied and/or taught at German art schools. In the social sciences, art schools have repeatedly attracted attention as important training centres for artistic elites. In particular, the selection processes and training practices at German art schools have been thematised in various ways. However, the question of the extent to which systematic inequalities in the distribution of power exist between professors at art schools has remained unaddressed by social science analysis. Although the professors of german art schools are a socio-structurally narrow and homogeneous elite of artists, it can be assumed that they nevertheless occupy exceedingly disparate positions in the field of art. These positions should be associated with unequal opportunities in the intra and extra muros struggles of the art schools for the monopoly of definition of a legitimate art. Based on Bourdieu's field theory, the article investigates the extent to which systematic inequalities exist in the distribution of power between professors, which types of professors have particular potential for influence and power, and the mechanisms on which the distribution of power resources is based. In order to grasp the distribution of power among art academy professors, the article focuses on the distributions, relationships, interactions and hierarchies of four forms of capital: Social, cultural, economic and symbolic capital. The metadata of n=258 artists who hold a full professorship at one of the n=22 state-run German art schools serve as the data basis.
| Dimension | Subdimension | Operatio-nalisation | Name | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CULTURAL CAPITAL: | certified cultural capital | Study at an art school | LEARN20 | Artists of the World/Own research |
| Incorporated cultural capital | Place of art study | LEARN1-LEARN19, LEARN21-LEARN125 | Artists of the World/Own research | |
| SOCIAL CAPITAL: | – | Ranking position of the gallery that has represented a professor most often | REPGAL1-REPGAL5 | Artfacts |
| – | Ranking position three most frequent co-exhibitors | MSW1-MSW6 | Artfacts | |
| ECONOMIC CAPITAL: | – | Price for a 1x1m work | PRICE | Limna |
| – | Art Fair Presence | ARTFAIR | Limna | |
| SYMBOLIC CAPITAL: | – | Cultural Recognition | CULTREC | Limna |
| – | Global Presence | GLOBAL | Limna | |
| OTHER VARIABLES: | – | Age | AGE | Artists of the World/Own research |
| – | Career age | CAREER | Artists of the World/Own research | |
| – | Disciplinary affiliation | DISP1-DISP19 | Artists of the World/Own research |
To view the distribution of the factor analysis input variables for mixed data, a ShinyApp has been provided. It can be found here.