Howard Becker, “Art Worlds (1982)”
미국인 음악학자 태러스킨(Richard Taruskin, 1945-2022)의 옥스퍼드 서양음악사 시리즈 중 “19세기 음악사”에서는 특정 작곡가에 집중되어 있는 관행적 음악사 서술에 문제제기를 하면서, 개별 작곡가들이 그들의 작품을 만들어 낸 배경이 되었을 집단적 요소들(processes of collective action end mediation)에 대한 연구의 중요성을 강조한다.
저자는 이에 덧붙여 미국인 사회학자 하워드 베커(Howard Becker, 1928-2023)의 1982년 저작 “Art Worlds”에 제시된 연구 방법론을 참고해 보도록 권한다. 베커의 Worlds 개념은 프랑스의 사회학자 피에르 부르디외(Pierre Bourdieu, 1930-2002)가 강조했던 특정 영역으로서의 장場Les champs을 확장하기 위한 제안이기도 하다.
태러스킨이 인용한 하워드 베커의 방법론 원칙의 출처가 19세기 영국 소설가 앤서니 트롤로프(Anthony Trollope, 1815-1882)의 자서전이라는 점도 인상적이다. 트롤로프의 자서전은 피터 브라운(Peter Brown, 1935-)이 자신의 회고록(“Journeys of the mind")의 모델로 언급했던 책이기도 하다.
”... Before people can organize themselves as a world explicitly justified by making objects or events defined as art, they need sufficient political and economic freedom to do that, and not all societies provide it.“ (p.39)
"...American audiences are polite to mediocre performers, but audiences in other countries can be very noisy when what they hear or see is not up to the expected standard; the rudeness of Italian opera audiences is legendary." (p.122)
"The merging of politics and aesthetics thus affects what can be counted as art at all, the reputations of whole genres and media as well as those of individual artists. The interests of states vary, and their interests in art vary accordingly." (p.166)
"The state exercises ultimate coercion by depriving them of freedom or life. Every artist, however apolitical, thus depends on the state not exercising those powers in order to continue work." (p.181)
"...nothing, and that includes art worlds, last forever." (p.348)
"The Nobel Prize committee in literature periodically awards the prize to someone who writes in a minor language and whose work is not widely known through translation into one of the European languages, but that seldom changes the situation very much. They may award the prize to an Icelandic novelist, but most members of the international audience do not read Icelandic and probably never will, so that the award is a gesture without consequence in the world of literature. If your linguistic community is small or unimportant, you cannot have a major reputation." (p.364)
Howard S. Becker, "Art Worlds",1982. (25th Anniversary Edition, 2008).