eprintid: 30219
rev_number: 21
eprint_status: archive
userid: 3730
dir: disk0/00/03/02/19
datestamp: 2021-07-16 09:01:14
lastmod: 2022-02-12 10:58:02
status_changed: 2021-07-16 09:01:14
type: article
metadata_visibility: show
creators_name: Buckermann, Paul
title: Ranking Art: Paradigmatic Worldviews in the Quantification and Evaluation of Contemporary Art
subjects: ddc-300
subjects: ddc-700
divisions: i-90100
keywords: art, commensuration, evaluation, quantification, rankings, sociology of culture
note: Dieser Beitrag ist aufgrund einer (DFG-geförderten) Allianz bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich. *** This publication is freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.
abstract: While numerous studies have shown diverse effects of rankings, rather little is known about their production. This article contributes to a broader understanding of rankings in society, and does so by focusing on underlying worldviews. I argue that the existence of a ranking and its concrete methodology can be explained by the producer’s paradigmatic assumptions about a world-to-be-ranked. Referring to the sociology of knowledge and studies on commensuration, comparisons, quantification and valuation, I provide a general heuristic to analyze this relation between underlying worldviews and observational regimes through which order is constructed systematically. Presenting empirical results on a ranking for the most famous artists in the world, I show how the review device’s initial problem and its construction of order derive from consistent assumptions about contemporary art, its symbolic structures and its social embeddedness. These findings have implications for both research on rankings and sociology of the arts.
date: 2021
publisher: Sage
id_scheme: DOI
id_number: 10.11588/heidok.00030219
official_url: https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276420972771
ppn_swb: 1767678754
own_urn: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-302196
language: eng
bibsort: BUCKERMANNRANKINGART2021
full_text_status: public
publication: Theory, Culture & Society
volume: 38
number: 4
place_of_pub: London
pagerange: 89-109
issn: 0263-2764 (Druck-Ausg.), 1460-3616 (Online-Ausg.)
edition: Zweitveröffentlichung
citation:   Buckermann, Paul  (2021) Ranking Art: Paradigmatic Worldviews in the Quantification and Evaluation of Contemporary Art.  Theory, Culture & Society, 38 (4).  pp. 89-109.  ISSN 0263-2764 (Druck-Ausg.), 1460-3616 (Online-Ausg.)     
document_url: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/30219/1/0263276420972771.pdf