Artification as Process

Abstract

The term ‘artification’ springs from a simple idea: art is not a given and cannot be defined once and for all as the consecrated body of works of established institutions and disciplines. Rather, it is a construct and the result of social processes that are located in time and place. Although this last statement is so fundamental to the sociological outlook as to border on truism, it entails adopting a socio-historical perspective that is less common than one would expect. This introduction recalls some of the empirical findings on culture on which the concept is based, while placing the theory of artification within the framework of process sociology. The apparent simplicity of the idea of artification is deceptive; it leads to a materialistic and socio-genetic perspective the implications of which have yet to be fully discovered.