Evaluation in Interaction: The Pragmatic Approach to Artistic Judgement

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss the pragmatic approach to studying artistic evaluation. The paper engages with recent literature and examines current trends in research on amateur and expert artistic judgement, arguing that the pragmatic scholarship has much to offer to the sociology of art and culture. It demonstrates the growth of qualitative research inspired by interpretivist approaches and symbolic interactionism, highlighting the main areas of researchers’ interest, such as (1) (Social) interaction between evaluators and artistic objects, or (2) Pragmatic rules and the situational character of artistic evaluation. This paper also identifies research gaps and provides directions for future research.

Keywords

• artistic evaluation
• interaction
• pragmatism
• symbolic interactionism