Politics of the art prize

Since writing a paper last semester on Theodor Adorno's views of high/low culture divisions and the culture industry's commodification of culture, I've been interested in how art prizes play into the economics and interests of this. While writing that paper, I came across an excellent article on this in one of my favourite journals, Media Culture & Society.

Then today, AL Daily pointed me to this New Yorker article that provides an overview of this topic from the perspective mainly of author and English professor, James F. English, who has written a book on the topic. As the New Yorker article points out about English's book, his central idea is that the need for authors to have the power to create economic value (cultural capital?) increases, so too do the number of prizes created and given out each year. The intent behind these prizes is to create value where it otherwise didn't exist, but that value is intended to be economic only. Thing is, how many consumers pay attention to such prizes? And since when did consumerism become so important to the art and vocation of writing?

Of course, this very topic is one that Adorno deals with extensively and at least in the case of literature, many of his concerns are valid. But I am reminded of Hannah Arendt's views on the culture division between high and low and I think they play into this too. Perhaps even moreso.

As I believe I blogged here last month, Arendt is quite critical of the notion that an author's work reflects the author themselves. Rather, she notes that the work instead reflects the author's ability to author and to play the role of author -- there is little, if any, within any artistic work that can lead us to the true inner-ness of the artist. Their artistic output can give us hints of what the artist is, but not who they are.

I believe this distinction is important to consider when looking at the role of art prizes such as the Booker, Giller, Pulitzer, and yes even the Nobel.