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In
Talking Art, acclaimed ethnographer Gary Alan Fine gives us an eye-opening look at the contemporary university-based master's-level art program. Through an in-depth analysis of the practice of the critique and other aspects of the curriculum, Fine reveals how MFA programs have shifted the goal of creating art away from beauty and toward theory. Contemporary visual art, Fine argues, is no longer a calling or a passion--it's a discipline, with an academic culture that requires its practitioners to be verbally skilled in the presentation of their intentions.
Talking Art offers a remarkable and disconcerting view into the crucial role that universities play in creating that culture.
About the author
Gary Alan Fine (Ph.D., Harvard University, Social Psychology, 1976) is the James E. Johnson Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. He is interested in understanding controversial reputations and problematic collective memories of figures. His current research involves shifting reputations and political positions of Southern segregationist politics and the examination of ruptures in political alliances. He is the co-author of
Symbols, Selves, and Social Reality (Oxford, 2013) and the author of
Authors of the Storm: Meteorology and the Culture of Prediction (Chicago, 2010) and
Everyday Genius: Self-Taught (Chicago, 2004). Several of his twenty books have received disciplinary awards in sociology and in folklore.
Summary
Gary Fine opens up the contemporary art practice MFA and finds that it’s mostly about theorizing and arguing about art, and very little about actually making it.
