While our traditional view of creative work might lead us to think of artists as solitary visionaries, the creative process is in fact deeply social. From those trying to land their first solo show to those with dozens of museum exhibitions, artists are influenced by others’ evaluations. In Bound by Creativity, 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. Wohl takes readers into artists’ studios and shares firsthand how they decide which works to leave unfinished, destroy, put into storage, or exhibit. Wohl then transports readers into the art world, examining the interactions in galleries, international art fairs, and collectors’ homes that shape artists’ understandings of their work.
Wohl shows us how moments of judgment—whether by artists, curators, dealers, or collectors—reveal artistic practices to be profoundly sociological, both because artists’ sensibilities are informed by their interactions with others, and because artists’ decisions about their work affect the objects that circulate through the world. We see that judgment is an integral element of the creative process, resulting in the creation of distinctive and original works. Creativity, Wohl shows, rests on these highly social dynamics, and exploring it through this lens sheds new light on the production of cultural objects, markets, and prestige.
Industry Reviews
"Sociological research and theories on creativity assume that creativity is based on collective processes, social evaluations and judgments, and the result of social networks, interactions, and shared beliefs. Hannah Wohl's book Bound by Creativity: How Contemporary Art Is Created and Judged addresses this sociological assumption by providing in-depth insights that she has gathered from a long-term ethnography within the contemporary art world in New York." * American Journal of Sociology *
"Wohl's intriguing book explores the mystery of creativity, the whatever-it-is that informs artists' visions as they shape successful and moving works of art and finds its explanation in the shared and socially supported understanding of the idea of creative vision. An original and profound contribution to the sociology of art."
-- Howard S. Becker
"Bound by Creativity escorts us into a world of radical uncertainty--the contemporary art market in New York City. Wohl brings us with her as she witnesses artists engaging with their publics, explaining their worth, and struggling against misinterpretations, or worse. What should count and why? And what to do when the counting goes wrong? These questions animate the creative process where genius emerges or fails to emerge. Artists, art critics, humanists, and social scientists will long debate this book and its findings. And those who care only about the creative process, no matter its field of application, will benefit from the clarity with which that process is described and acted upon. Powerful and evocative, this work shows how creative genius is generated and why it sometimes survives assaults on its worth."
-- Frederick F. Wherry, Princeton University
