“Consecration and Creativity: Insights from the Art World”
Using the art world in early twentieth–century Paris as a backdrop, the talk explores how social and economic contexts shape individual achievements, both in terms of success and creativity. It first introduces a structural approach to consecration, and demonstrates how consecration influenced the economic worth of artists over and above other social processes of valuation. In a second move, the talk investigates how the structural transformations of the art market induced a change in the social embeddedness of creativity. Ultimately, the case and approach help to reflect anew about the questions of what makes us valuable or not, and creative or not.
Fabien Accominotti is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Columbia University. He also holds a Ph.D. from Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. His interests lie at the intersection of economic sociology, the sociology of culture, and social network research. His talk will be based on an article currently in R&R at the American Journal of Sociology, and on a larger book he is writing with Princeton University Press.