Cultural Embeddedness in the Arts
The Arts and Culture
Ways that artists create knowledge can intrigue all the senses through music, images, and the spoken word. Indeed art is one of the most important means of expression developed by human beings and is manifested in every aspect of life. Artists, through their creation of images or objects, have always shown a deep concern about life around them often recording in paintings, objects or music their observation of people going about their usual everyday tasks. Consider the works of the 17th century painter Johannes Vermeer who specialized in domestic interior scenes of middle-class life; or James Joyce’s Ulysses, a modernist novel based on the ordinary encounters of Leopold Bloom in Dublin during the course of one ordinary day, 16th June 1904. In essence, artists and the arts more generally act as creators, interpreters, and communicators of culture conveying the totality of behavior and products of human work and thought.
Culture has been defined in hundreds of ways adhering to both its importance and to its elusive and intangible nature. Grasping culture is complicated and often problematic. Yet, it is vital to how individuals see themselves and their place in the world. By synthesizing more than 100 definitions of culture Whitely and England (1977) arrive at a working definition as “the knowledge, beliefs, art, law, morals, customs and other capabilities of one group distinguishing it from other groups.” Culture creates affinity for people based on what they know. But it also creates curiosity and sometimes barriers because of society’s tendency to judge their own beliefs and value systems against those of others. Although there may be divergent opinions, there is a broad consensus about the fundamental features of culture as firstly, a shared group property; secondly, a mostly intangible construct where many elements need to be inferred; and thirdly, a construct that is confirmed by others and must be observed by others from the outside (Shenkar, Luo, and Chi 2015).
Understanding how culture is defined and its fundamental features is important when artists move from satisfying their own needs to satisfying the needs of others for payment. Indeed entrepreneurship in the arts belongs to the creative or cultural segment of the economy (DCMS 1998). Entrepreneurs in cultural industries may wish to consider how they can expand out of their familiar markets and attract new customers. Alternatively, they may need to understand more tangibly how they can respond to cultural events and changes in their own cultural groupings. Cultural industries are among the most dynamic sectors of the world economy. Statistics show that in times of economic crisis the cultural industries (or interchangeably, often referred to as creative industries) can offer potentially more resilient, inclusive, and environmentally viable paths to recovery for both mature and developing nations (UNCTAD 2010; DCMS 2011). An increasing number of governments, in developing and mature countries alike, are identifying creative industries as a priority sector in their national development strategies. Growth across international boundaries is often supported by governments in a specialized manner, by setting up special agencies to promote art and culture separately from businesses. For example, the British Council and the German Goethe Institute are worldwide cultural institutes for promoting language, cultural exchange, education, and relations for their respective nations.
In understanding the elusiveness of culture however, it is not that surprising that entrepreneurs and organizations active within the creative industries (that are not technology dependent) overwhelmingly tend to remain small and local. Place plays an important role for artists maybe because of a culture rich history or a cluster effect (Scott 2006; Florida 2007), although this would appear to be devolving as the Internet, recreation and environmental preferences trump what big city clusters offer (Markusen 2013). Nevertheless, being embedded within a culture and place creates somewhat of a predicament for artists that would like to grow and make a living from their work. Certainly national level institutions may support a policy of international trade development for creative industries. However, culture is not always defined by a geographic boundary, nor do financial incentives and promotion substantially assist artist entrepreneurs in creating work that will be positively observed by others to the extent that those others are willing to pay for it. Rather, a deep understanding of what cultural embeddedness means for entrepreneurs in the arts, a knowledge of how art traverses cultures and to what extent art can aspire to be culture-free can guide artists more authentically in their creativity. Conceptualizing these ideals can provide a valuable upstream influence for entrepreneuring artists that can influence positioning and impact of their artistic work.
Some artist entrepreneurs cross cultural domains very successfully although the literature provides limited insight of how this happens. For example, in 1994 two college drop-outs Cathal Gaffney and Darragh O’Connell borrowed £2,000 and found the Irish animation company Brown Bag Films. Within its 25 years of existence the firm picked up a host of international awards including Oscar nominations, six Emmy awards and a host of BAFTA and Annie nominations for their hit shows. So while many entrepreneurial artists may feel confined to selling at local weekend markets and craft fairs, some achieve great global success providing offerings with substantial international appeal. Interpreting this phenomenon may be guided by an innate understanding of what it means to be culturally embedded or culture-free.
Cultural Embeddedness in the Arts
In nearly all regions of the world, one ethnic group predominates by sheer population numbers, socially, or both. Traditionally cultural studies were undertaken by pitting any two groups against each other in an attempt to identify, produce, and explain differences between the two groups. It has been stressed already that a fundamental feature of culture is that it is confirmed by others and must be observed by others from the outside. This of course can be explained because individuals traditionally understand culture from the basis of their own self-identification, even if this remains in part at an unconscious level. But in reality culture is not delineated by polarized groupings such as individuals of Spanish versus Italian nationality, or, Democrat versus Republican voters in the United States.
It is now accepted that understanding culture and cultural embeddedness requires more pluralistic, multi-group approaches. This is particularly true in the modern environment where national cultures are increasingly enriched and characterized by globalization trends and greater movement of people. For example, the imprint of the late British architect Zaha Hadid on the world of architecture reflects her Middle Eastern and British background, her training in London and her commitment to modernism, among other cultural influences. It cannot be suggested with confidence that Hadid’s work is an example of British architecture. Similarly, while largely composed of a population of European descent, the U.S. culture has also been shaped by the cultures of Native Americans, Latin Americans, Africans and Asians to provide a melting pot that artists reflect on and traverse. So while there may be a tendency to identify or test cultural differences in a quantifiable way, adopting tools such as Geert Hofstede’s five dimensions of national culture (Hofstede 2001) or perhaps comparing Islamic and Christian banking practices, these approaches generate little insight into the embedded mechanisms underlying cultural effects.
Understanding cultural embeddedness requires a more holistic explanation involving many factors such as ethnic identity, transitory beliefs that may determine a person’s communal identities and loyalties at a point in time (e.g., being “Irish” on St. Patrick’s Day) (Stayman and Deshpande 1989), racial stereotyping of others, inter-generational influences, religion or language. Essentially, the components of how individuals can quantify cultural embeddedness involve an interplay of continuous dynamic interactions with each other. This speaks to a complicated fusion of mechanisms responsible for the visible cultural effects that embeds artists within a group. When outside, observers can only at best infer what these might be creating the fundamental challenge for where and how entrepreneurs can do business.
An example of the transitory and other influences on culturally embedded art is provided in Box 4.1 where the journey of “fado” music in Portugal is described. From its rise on the streets of Lisbon in the early 19th century the illustration shows how it emerged into the internationally recognized art form of today. This journey illustrates how art takes on the static and dynamic elements of people and place, transforming over time yet still rooted in its place and history.
Box 4.1 The cultural journey of fado
Fado is a musical genre that can be traced back to the early 19th century in Lisbon although its origins are probably from a much earlier period. Some historians suggest an ancient Moorish influence. Fado is characterized by mournful tunes and lyrics, often about the sea or the life of the poor, and infused with a sense of longing. This longing is captured by the Portuguese word Saudade which claims no direct translation into English but purports to be characteristic of the Portuguese temperament. From its origins of spontaneous execution in gardens, bullfights, streets and alleyways, fado moved into the more theatrical representations of a bohemian aristocrat with the fado singing prostitute in the early part of the 20th century. A military coup in 1926 and subsequent censorship regulation in 1927 would however see the extinction of this type of public theater. With the consequential Estado Novo authoritarian regime Fado suffered unavoidable changes. Its emergence in fado houses in Lisbon’s historic neighborhoods from the middle of the 20th century coincided with a loss of many of the original improvisation aspects of the art. Internationalization of fado consolidated in the 1950s across the African continent and in Brazil. In 1974 Portugal instituted a democratic regime. While fado initially became unpopular because of its prior association with the former Estato Novo, the stabilizing of democracy allowed fado to regain its own space. It is mainly since the 1980s and with globalization and renewed interest in local music cultures that fado would cement its position in the international World Music circuits with a new generation of talented interpreters and internally renowned performers.
Traversing Culturally Embedded Domains
Having portrayed the stable and dynamic features confronting creative industries as culturally embedded actors, it may appear intriguing that art can appeal beyond its cultural confines. Could some art be culture-free? Or, are there degrees of cultural embeddedness? Or, perhaps is art interpreted differently across cultures while still being appreciated? Given that art forms such an important part of culture and the concepts are usually considered in tandem, many would suggest that art cannot be culture-free because it is always open to interpretation (Hacoy 2002, Greenfield 1977). Yet in the business world financial, geographical, and cultural boundaries are being broken for the purchase and sale of art. This is epitomized in the growing trend of Asian buyers that are now gravitating toward Western art (Christies 2017).
Cross-cultural researchers have determined that for a construct to traverse cultural boundaries, at least conceptual and functional equivalent must be established in another culture (Hacoy 2002; Duijker and Frijda 1960; Berry and Dasen 1974; Poortinga and Malpass 1986). With any culture, contemporary meanings are usually multiple, complex, situational, and changing. A triangulation of the diversity of voices within the cultural group and with the creator of the art may be necessary to ascertain the range of possibility in meanings. Moreover in a postmodern multicultural world, meaning structures from minority cultures have often blended with dominant culture constructs in some sophisticated, syncretized form to make this task even more challenging. It is also interesting to note that inherent bias can exist in which indigenous perspectives or non-Western perspectives are often omitted or simplistically or stereotypically represented (Said 1978; Hacoy 2002). So while interpretation is relevant within dominant culture individuals, it is exponentially more complicated with individuals from different cultural backgrounds.
Traversing cultures and overcoming bias involves sensitivity to both the interpretation of the artist and the targeted group. Local meaning structures can be discerned through consultations with community or cultural group members or through a client. Culture experts or intermediaries are well recognized in the literature ranging from community participants (Hacoy 2002) to professionals (Boutinot et al. 2015) to intermediaries (Ryan, Keane, and Cunningham 2008) that often fulfill this task.
Can Art Be Culture Free?
Could it be possible to avoid the complexity of culturally embedded enterprise or traversing art to customers across cultural groups? Although many suggest that this is not possible, there are arguments for an alternate view. While it may be somewhat aspirational to achieve in its entirety multiple logics exist for how culture-free art can exist at polarized ends of a continuum.
One notion of what it means to be culture-free may be reflected in universal processes of enterprise. It has been argued that the logic of industrialism generates imperatives of an economic and technical nature that molds the development of industrial societies into a common pattern (Kerr et al. 1960). Industrialization in this argument brings about certain changes in the context of organizations which necessitates certain developments in the organizational structure that are universal like shared services and systems (Hickson et al. 1974). While artistic firms are often small enterprises where universal complexities of scale may be irrelevant, these ideas can manifest in peculiar forms. Artistic professional services such as architecture are one example where professional norms, behaviors and etiquette can traverse cultural boundaries allowing organizations to establish across cultures in the same way that structural complexities of size create universal processes in large organizations. Another manifestation of culture free processes may be conceptualized in a strong artistic identity that is needed to handle the high risk and failure inherent in the sector (Bridgstock 2011; Hall 2004; Inkson 2006). This can be regarded as universal and artists may even locate to creative cities such as London, New York, Los Angeles to create exhibition opportunities but also to realize a universal expectation of identity (Lingo and Tepper 2015).
Another aspiration of culture free relates to product. The avant-garde theater artist Antonin Artaud was renowned for his passion-driven action in opposition to a culture. Artaud counsels us to learn from the great painters and their pictures that he suggests are able to evoke a metaphysical pathos with great themes as “Becoming,” “Destiny,” “Equilibrium,” or “Chaos.” Artaud rebelling against all forms of culture espouses that only art by those who had journeyed deeply into their own mindscapes could culture. The business of avant-garde strives for critical creativity subverting a conventional and formalized culture (Guillet de Monthoux 2005). Whether culture free product can complement entrepreneurship however is open to consideration with one proponent, the provocative Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz (1904–1969, p. 268) informing us that:
A creator cannot count on steady earnings. There is a kind of art for which you are paid and another you have to pay for performing. You may pay with your health or with your belongings. My life has been more of an ascetic kind.
Artaud has been described as both a madman and a visionary but his dialogue opens up a debate that art could escape from the confines of culture.
One final observation and perhaps more commercially focused than Artaud’s vision of culture free art is the emergence of new forms of global iconic art such as architecture (Sklair 2005, 2006) that is driven by capitalist globalization. In earlier periods most iconic art was driven by the interests of the state and/or religion. Global art (e.g., the Disney concert hall in Los Angeles designed by the architect Frank Gehry) sponsored by institutions and agents of the transnational capitalist class has increasingly come to define the times, places and audiences that make art iconic.
Managing the Challenge of Cultural Embeddedness in the Arts
For entrepreneurs in the arts, dealing with the culturally embedded nature of their work presents particular challenges for reaching customers and other audiences. It is therefore important to understand the interplay between art and culture to gain greater insight on commercialization and growth opportunities. Suggestions for entrepreneurial artists can be synthesized into five options grounded in our evaluation of cultural embeddedness, traversing cultures, and culture-free art forms:
1. Stay local/familiar. Artistic interpretation is often culturally embedded and this chapter points to the intricacy and complexity of understanding cultural groupings. Given that culture embeds elusive and transient elements, by staying with the artist’s cultural group keeps them in tune with the evolving nature of shared beliefs, values, and norms of everyday activity.
2. Use experts to interpret. Certain actors can act as cultural interpreters and intermediaries for the artist possibly naturally because they span multiple groupings but also because they may have an interest in communicating with the artist and the community. These may include agents, government representatives, exhibition or craft fair organizers. Evidently resources will be required for this and some risk is involved in letting go of the meaning from the artist’s work. However, access and connections as well as time saving may outweigh these concerns.
3. Adjust and adapt. The artist can act as an astute ethnographer in determining current and local meaning systems rather than relying on others. This requires skill and time but doing it independently means that the artist maintains control lowering potential for reputation damage. Relationships can be formed that may be enduring helping the artist to grow their business.
4. Awareness of culture-free process and product dimensions. Even if culture free art is an aspirational notion, an awareness of how either processes or product can be culture free provides a basis for decision making about business models, growth and positioning of the business.
5. Maneuver within subgroups. Rather than spanning cultural domains a focus on moving within cultural subgroups can have benefits. Minority to minority cultural groups may have a certain shared understanding. Certainly minority to majority groups may have an understanding although taking an easy option by focusing on a majority group may limit responses and persuasion.
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