Bound by Creativity

"In Creative Visions, sociologist Hannah Wohl draws on more than one hundred interviews and two years of ethnographic research in the New York contemporary art market, developing a sociological perspective on creativity through the analytic lens of judgment. The artists she encountered range from those trying to land their first solo exhibition to those with several dozens of museum exhibitions. She visited their studios and saw firsthand how they decided which works to leave unfinished, or to destroy, put into storage, or exhibit. She observed the installation of exhibitions in galleries, assisted in selling artwork for a gallery, and followed private collectors around art fairs and VIP collector events. Moments of judgment-whether by artists, curators, dealers, or buyers-led her to uncover that artistic practices are deeply sociological: both because artists' decisions are informed by their interactions with others, and because artists' decisions about their work affect the objects which circulate through the social world. Artists recognize that exhibitors and collectors prefer artists whom they deem to display a clear signature style. Wohl also explores judgment in art as part of the creative process. Evaluation, she says, is both a way that one judges how good a work is, and how one makes decisions about producing work. Our understanding of creative work rests on these highly social dynamics, Wohl shows, shedding new light on the production of cultural objects and prestige"--