Conceptualization of the Art Crisis: the Experience of Branch sociology

Popov Evgeniy Aleksandrovich Doctor of Philosophy Professor of the Department of Sociology and Conflictology of Altai State University 65649, Russia, Barnaul, Dimitrova str., 66, office 513A popov.eug@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

         Introduction. The concept of a crisis of a phenomenon or process is often a common place of modern interdisciplinary and specialized research. In fact, everything that surrounds a person can be subject to a crisis, moreover, the individual himself often has a crisis worldview. Moreover, the onset of a crisis is often explained by the regression of certain features or properties of social reality, etc. The crisis is discussed from the point of view of its impact on various aspects of human individual and collective existence, identified as a systemic phenomenon inseparable from certain value-semantic structures. In any case, when using the concept of crisis in scientific circulation, the key characteristics of a phenomenon or process that is in a state of crisis or affected by the crisis to one degree or another become obvious to many.

Theorizing about the crisis has its own methodology – it can be a systemic or, for example, a structural and functional analysis; the purpose of such a research perspective is the opportunity to present the crisis as a state that generates complex and contradictory consequences or contributes to the appearance of other changes (states). At the same time, an assessment of the permanence of the crisis, its duration, orientation, causality and subjectivity, framelessness, etc. can be given. The well-known judgment of N.A. Berdyaev that "a machine entered the world victoriously and violated the age-old harmony of organic life" ^{[2, p. 13]} speaks of the significant role of technology and technological progress in the onset of the crisis of being. Of course, there are other circumstances that affect the crisis as a vector of understanding of being and the crisis as an objective reality of being and the state of a person in it. Objectification of the crisis is just an urgent issue for socio-humanitarian knowledge. It is not so easy to present convincing arguments that will sufficiently indicate the onset or continuation of the crisis state of a particular phenomenon or process. The problem is all the more complicated when it comes to such a delicate and complex phenomenon as art.

         The crisis of art can and should be objectified, the statement of such a state of art should not be formal, proceeding from the conviction that the subtle facets of art, reflecting the inner world of a person and his experiences, initially contribute to the crisis associated with inconsistency in the perception of the world. Objectification of the crisis of art can be based on the results of specific empirical studies carried out, for example, within a specific branch of sociological knowledge – the sociology of art. In this regard, we can expect to receive conclusions that will allow us to approach the empirical identification of the crisis of art. Thus, the purpose of this article is to review the results of some modern research by sociologists aimed at identifying the crisis of art. At the same time, it should be emphasized that in theoretical terms, the emphasis will be placed both on exogenous factors of the existence of art, i.e. external determinants of its development and contributing to the crisis state, and on endogenous – more complex for the sociology of art, determining the internal aspects of the existence of art, also influencing the emergence of the crisis.

         The concept of the crisis of art: the polarization of approaches in social knowledge. If we proceed from the subject area of social sciences (and in particular, sociology), then in this case art is often considered as a form of public consciousness, while the research perspective shifts towards interpretations of the existence of art in social reality depending on various social circumstances or in connection with other forms of public consciousness, for example, philosophy ^[4].

         The existing scientific discourse on the identified issues reveals the polarization of interpretations of the crisis of art in two directions: 1) "remoteness"/the "separation" of art from man, contributing to the autonomy of art, the self-sufficiency of its existence regardless of any external causes and processes; at the same time, the subjectivity of art is questioned, i.e. the question of the "death of the author", in the terminology of R. Barth, is being discussed ^[1]; in the foreign sociology of art in recent years, the question of the "new reality of art", in which its existence does not depend on any factors, the concept of the ontos of art arises ^{[7, p. 31]}; 2) the increasing importance of technology and intellectual systems not only in the existence of art itself, but also its perception by the recipient (viewer, reader, listener) – since art it is becoming more and more influenced by technological systems, then, based on the assessment of their significance in the being of man, society and culture, various concepts and theories are being built regarding the trinity: man – technique (techne) – art; some researchers observe a "transformation of sensuality" when it comes to the fact that "the work comes out of theunder the author's control: neural networks embedded in art objects are trained in the process of work and provide self-transformation of the installation; such a new art form as a self-developing object arises" ^{[6, pp. 87-88]}. In both of these cases, we can talk about the crisis of art due to several key points.

First of all, the crisis of art demonstrates changes in the coordinate system necessary for assessing its existence: the traditional ambivalent structure of form/content no longer always satisfies the possibilities of a deep assessment of the state of art: "observing how the form blurs, loses its gradient, is not guessed, and the content at the same time escapes, hides behind a vague form, we observe nothing but a crisis – no one can put together the form and content ..." ^{[8, p. 139]}. Moreover, when discussing the issue of the "new reality of art", the authors often rely on the possibility of identifying the crisis as "interference in art by the researcher" ^{[8, p. 148]} – art seems to be designed for researchers to penetrate into its fabric as deeply as it allows them to see its idea. At the same time, the crisis of art is already understood on this basis as the assumption of the possibility of penetration into the ontos of art by anyone, any interested subject. "Art for research" is an independent trend of the crisis, so scientists insist that the "new reality of art" is the ultimate isolation of art from the world of things and the world of people, it is a given. A dispute arises as to how to explore art in this case – the nuances of its existence will always elude the recipient, and there is no effective methodology; qualitative methods give an idea only of the possibilities of objectification of the subject–object dialogue (recipient – art) ^{[14, p. 79]}. The understanding of the crisis of art, which comes from its nature and self-sufficiency, not only complicates the research path to its objectification, but also generates discussions about the boundaries of the corresponding theorizing. It is obvious that the traditional formal-content aspect is no longer so heuristically significant, although, of course, form and content have always remained key characteristics of art, and their "insufficiency" in relation to each other (when the form does not correspond to the content or vice versa) it may also speak in favor of the crisis of art in general or its specific type.

Sociologists are involved in such discussions, defending, on the one hand, the "purity" of art for research, but at the same time appealing primarily to the definition of the value of art for man and society ("purity" in this case is understood as the phenomenon of the greatest approximation of art to the recipient, the reduction of the gap or value-semantic distance between them ^{[15, p. 220]}). Proceeding from this, the crisis of art appears to researchers as a violation of the principle of "purity" of art. On the other hand, in the process of theoretical understanding of the problem, sociologists pay attention to the fact that art ceases to reflect the social picture of being and, in terms of content, "moves away from a person into the virtual or digital world, blurring the form to some unidentifiable casts of reality" ^{[12, p. 240]}. If we follow this position, the probability of identifying the crisis of art by scientists increases markedly due to the fact that the virtualization of art implies a loss of connection with social reality – the statement of this fact in sociological research leads scientists to the conviction of a comprehensive search for any strong links of art with certain phenomena. Thus, within the framework of the sociology of art, the question of the self-sufficiency of the phenomenon under study is not raised and is practically not discussed, but researchers are actively searching for the boundaries of art in its relation to the phenomena and processes of social reality.

At the same time, as already noted, the main boundary in the perspective proposed by sociologists is not the ratio of form and content, but the conjugation of art with social existence. As B. Erickson notes, even an elementary question asked to recipients regarding the scale of distancing in relation to art largely clarifies the situation with its purpose in the individual and collective being of a person and, moreover, is able to identify the crisis state of art depending on the indicator in such a scale. Meanwhile, the German authors conducted a corresponding sociological study: in 2021-2022, more than 2,500 respondents who visited museums of contemporary art in various European cities (Vienna, Berlin, Zurich, etc.) were interviewed: the understanding of art trends, the frequency of museum visits, the time spent on visits, etc. were evaluated ^[18]. An aggregated index of attitude to art was used; the presented scale showed a measurement of "distance" at the level of 4.62 points out of ten, which, from the authors' point of view, is an eloquent indicator of the "long path" of art to the recipient: there is often no interest and understanding, there are no interpretations of what they saw or they are simplified, the time spent on visits is reduced etc. ^{[18, p. 30]}. In part, the results obtained are correlated with the data of another sociological study described by D. Hall and E. Tiso ^{[14, p. 166-168]} – in 2012, the authors conducted expert interviews with 56 informants engaged in the field of art - agents, owners and managers of museums and galleries of European cities and others; the overall result of the study: experts see the crisis of art in the fact that it is being replaced by ersatz forms that are closer to the recipient than authentic or even modern underground art - "proximity", "distance" and "distance" – these are new dimensions (or trends) of the attitude to art. If we interpret these results as signs of a crisis of art, then, in my opinion, this is not quite true – it is rather a crisis of interpretations, new opportunities for experiencing being, in the end, we need to take into account a new type of personality for which consumer behavior practices are important, including in relation to art: the actual question of the relationship between man and art for this type of personality is open: what can art give me today?                                          

It should also be borne in mind that the crisis of art is a state burdened by mutual claims on the part of recipients and authors of works, and it's not just about taste and claims to interpretation and interpretation – we are talking about the fact that art "signals" that authors belong to a certain social group, as N. Sokolova and E. Mikhailova ^{[5, p. 195]}, and at the same time, recipients (viewers, readers, listeners) are not always ready to share the claims of social groups on their tastes, images, ideas about reality – and this would be a completely natural process of subject-subject relations if the "circulation of symbols" between groups, communities and specific individuals did not generate a large number of misunderstandings, conflicts, and even fraud and speculation in art ^{[13; 18]}. The design of social statuses in art and the attempts being made to consolidate and replicate them are emphasized by many modern researchers in the field of sociology and anthropology of art ^{[9; 10; 17; etc.]}.      

Art and its crisis are evaluated, as before, from the point of view of a serious impact on social processes and human existence. This is not an idle question at all – it comes from the desire of researchers to see in art not the divine, not hidden in the depths of the subconscious, but "specifically social", in the words of G. Boash and A. Kvemin ^{[8, p. 112]}. On this basis, it is proposed to consider the crisis of art as any deviation from sociality ^{[8, p. 202]}. Of course, this interpretation raises many questions: it is not entirely clear what sociality is and how specifically art should respond to it or not. Meanwhile, in line with the sociology of art, there is an opinion that the crisis of art is more evidence of a misunderstanding of its role in human social existence, also that society has lost interest in art as an effective and effective way of socialization and inculturation, ensuring the connection of times, epochs and worldviews of different generations, etc. ^{[17, p. 271-272]}. This is probably due to the elitization of art, its "erection" into museums, salons and galleries, possibly institutionalization, etc. This issue needs further scientific reception.

The crisis of art: the way to overcome. The statement of the crisis of art, as noted in this article, develops in different directions: it depends both on the assessments of the role of art in human existence, and on the identification of various aspects of one's own existence of art in the diversity of its types and forms. One way or another, researchers have to take into account the delicacy of the phenomenon of art, certain difficulties in its perception, interpretation, identification of its ontological boundaries, etc. Of course, within the framework of sociological knowledge, not all issues are solved unambiguously, in this case, the option of interdisciplinary reception of art based on traditional provisions of philosophy and psychology of art is rather more acceptable. At the same time, it is noteworthy that scientists are not limited only to stating the very fact of the crisis of art and theorizing on this score, they began to offer some options for overcoming the state in question. At the same time, we can talk about a systemic crisis associated with the existence of art itself (although in this perspective, it is unlikely that sufficiently effective ways to minimize the crisis state are possible), or a crisis in its particular manifestations, for example, in the "zone" of art's influence on a person or on society as a whole. As a rule, sociologists offer such opportunities to overcome the crisis, which are rather advisory in nature and which come from the results of a specific study. Therefore, the proposed options can be considered as an integral part of the conceptualization of the crisis of art. In this regard, scientists note that "it is impossible in modern conditions to talk about any manifestations of the crisis of art, if we are not ready to offer possible ways to minimize it, at least at a debatable theoretical level ..." ^{[8, p. 70]}. At the same time, the conceptualization of the crisis is, of course, a coordinate system created by researchers who seek to give the crisis distinct boundaries, measure it and give advice on the possibilities of overcoming it.

Proposals to overcome the crisis of art on the part of sociologists are mainly formulated in two planes. Firstly, the assessment of the social experience of art perception is given, and from this point of view, the prevailing opinion is that it is necessary to expand the role of art in the socialization and inculturation of personality. Secondly, sociologists pay attention to the destructive influence of modern art on a person, and therefore, based on the formal-meaningful, ideological-artistic and sensual-emotional nature of art, recommend in all cases of such influence to appeal to the ethical and aesthetic "code" of human existence, in which traditional moral values and ideas about beauty and the beautiful. Apparently, it can be argued, therefore, that sociologists complement the well-known developments of philosophers and cultural scientists in this direction, and philosophers, meanwhile, retain an ethical and aesthetic view of the problems of the existence of art as a self-sufficient phenomenon.

The question of the attributive nature of the existence of art remains debatable – there is still a large number of works that touch on the issues of politicization, legitimization or sociologization of art; as noted in one of the articles, "the attribution of art has long been justified and approved, if we continue to return to the fact that art has to prove something to someone or provide information, then it is unlikely that any effects will be obtained from this, moreover: art will close in itself" ^{[11, p. 42]}. In fact, an attributive approach is rather necessary for the "archiving" of art, for preserving it for posterity, and not at all for free and "strained" interpretations associated, for example, with consumption and consumerism: "ultimately, the extent to which it will satisfy the needs of art depends on what kind of art it will be the population and form them, i.e. what will be the contacts of the population with art and the processes of mastering art by people" ^{[3, p. 186]}. The utilitarian approach to art, assessments of its consumer potential indicate the need to take into account the tastes of society, fashion trends and their impact on contemporary art, etc., but at the same time, researchers are often not ready to evaluate the "new reality of art", which is spoken of as "the need to penetrate deep into art as delicately as possible and all the time not to ask about its political or social value, but about absolute for everyone and everyone" ^{[8, p. 90]}. It is difficult to object to this, but still it is impossible not to take into account that, for example, sociological research within the framework of the relevant branch of sociology (sociology of art) they are aimed at identifying the social role of art, as, probably, marketing ones aim to determine the consumer "index" of art.

Sociologists are actively conducting research on art, in which, on the one hand, signs of a crisis of the phenomenon under study are established, but on the other hand, some possibilities for overcoming it are offered. In this article I will turn to one, in my opinion, an actual example from the experience of foreign researchers. 

Thus, one of the works summarizes the results of a long–term study of the boundaries of the crisis of art (1998-2002), while it is worth emphasizing that the authors resorted to this perspective for a more significant goal for them – to demonstrate the boundaries of social sciences at the intersection of various phenomena and processes of human existence - "The Study of Boundaries in the Social Sciences" ^[16]. The method of mass survey of participants of scientific conferences devoted to the problems of art and held on the basis of well–known European universities, such as Basel, Charles University in Prague, Madrid, Naples and others was used - a total of 28 higher educational institutions. 2125 researchers engaged in the study of art were interviewed – all of them were registered as participants in conferences with reports and speeches. In fact, we are talking about obtaining an aggregated expert opinion, but the authors of the work relied on the mass character and greater involvement of respondents primarily on a territorial scale for greater coverage of participants. By the way, it should be noted that such scientific events are in demand in Europe – interest in the study of art, its history, is not only not weakening, but, as you can see, is reaching a new level; for example, one of the international conferences in Barcelona was called "Art / Artificial Intelligence: is there a new reality?" (2002). The crisis of art in the above study was determined by three key criteria of a "subject-oriented nature", i.e. associated primarily with the perception of reality: 1) the calculated index of the "departure of art from reality" is the cumulative maximum indicator: 12.55 (the calculated indicator tested by the authors of the work: assessment of genre, form, correspondence of form and content, style, the ratio of monostyle and polystylistics, etc.); 2) differentiation of the interests of recipients in the choice between classical and contemporary art with prevailing creation of works by digital, synthetic, illusory and other technologies – a cumulative maximum indicator of 7.20 (calculated indicator of attendance, time spent on visiting, individual choice and preferences, etc.); 3) assessment of the sensory-emotional background on a scale from stable emotions to the absence of any expressed emotion - the maximum level of 10 (traditional assessment scale emotions in the perception of works of art ^[19]).

As this study has shown, the crisis of art is identified by recipients as the inability to get ideas about the current reality from contact with art and as a result of the perception of works of art, as well as expressed emotions or dominant emotion – it is often concluded that the crisis of art is due to the mismatch of the values of society or the value orientations of a particular social group or community and embodied in specific works or in general in a particular direction of art, certain expectations of recipients, etc. At the same time, it is pointed out that according to all three objectified indicators of the crisis given above, the indices are on average reduced by 15-17%, which, according to the authors of the empirical study, is a good reason to state the crisis state of art ^[16]. The authors, meanwhile, clarify that in a crisis of art, it "ceases to reflect reality, can distort it, to a large extent trivialize or modify it to any hyperforms, while the form and content diverge and do not support each other, etc." ^{[16, p. 194]}. It is also noted that the so-called calculated index of the "departure of art from reality" was considered with an acceptable "anti-crisis value of no more than 7.00 points, but in the study it exceeded this bar and amounted to 8.12. Thus, a crisis was established for this indicator. On the other hand, the second and third indicators also allowed us to talk about the crisis. Thus, the choice of recipients from classical to modern art turned out to be unequal – but in itself, of course, it does not yet indicate a crisis: preferences between classical and modern art are a completely normal and objective state of affairs, at the same time, "the blurring of boundaries in the perception of traditional and new in art indirectly or directly speaks of a crisis both the individual and the art itself" ^{[7, p. 31]}. I would add that such an approach still cannot be fully considered a "register" of the art crisis – it is necessary to take into account the subjective factors of the emotional and sensory state of the study participants, in addition, it would make sense to conduct not mass surveys with them, but qualitative research, for example, focus groups that could give more indicative information about the state of contemporary art and the possibility of identifying its crisis by various indicators. In a word, the boundaries of the crisis of art are not fully objectified in science, although, of course, the proposed research developments can help in this.                                                  

The above study contains the recommendation of its authors regarding the "way out of the impasse": it is proposed to minimize the overcoming of the crisis of art, "society itself should form such a public consciousness that will allow defining the boundaries between the real/unreal, good/evil, sacred/profane, etc." ^{[16, p. 195]}. There are, of course, many difficulties and it is not so easy to "form public consciousness", to increase or decrease its degree. On the other hand, such a conclusion is quite characteristic of sociologists – they see the need not only for an individual solution to the issue, but also for a collective one, so they are looking for possible ways to manage the reaction of society and to assign responsibility "for the perception of art" to society itself, and not just to the individual.

Conclusion. Within the framework of branch sociology – the sociology of art, attempts are being made to identify the crisis of art more and more actively. The trend is to comprehend the crisis of human existence as a whole, so it is natural that many fields of science pay increased attention to this. Of course, the crisis of art is a complex, multifaceted phenomenon, its comprehension needs deep theorizing, but also objectification; I have given some possibilities of this state of affairs in this article, showing the debatable nature of some issues regarding the identification of the crisis of art and reflecting in this the position of sociological science, which has opportunities for further development of the "art crisis index".