“This is a pure buying market”: culture manager and the economization of art

"Although the economy of art is assumed to be almost universal, it is only unsatisfactorily understood in sociological terms how far it has actually progressed and who - or, how - the financial logic prevails in art. It is also unclear how art itself transforms under economic measures and in which relationship art and financial things interact. The discussion about the economization of the social part of art therefore requires an empirical back-line. It seems promising to take a look at the group of actors in the artistic field whose task is precisely the mediation between art and economics: the cultural managers and cultural managers. The results of the research conducted by means of guiding interviews enable a differentiated cartography of the economization of art. The degree of market logic enforcement and the identified action strategies of the cultural managers show a high variance: the typology ranges from the application of the most advanced management strategies in the service of autonomous art to the translation of all art phenomena into the language of business administration (’ This is a pure buyer market’) under a maxim such as: 'I never do minus’. The following questions will be answered empirically: Does the work of cultural managers serve to secure the autonomy of art or do they advance their internal economization? How do economic-oriented cultural managers differ from primarily artistically oriented cultural managers in their action goals, strategies and results? Do culture managers have a fateful view of market processes in the arts sector? Which stage of the economization of art has been reached so far and which mechanisms are significantly effective? "(author’s abstract)