Beyond Aesthetics: Contemporary Art as an Answer to Critics Towards Arts-Based Methods in Organizations

Abstract

Research showed that art could improve organizations through a kind of importation of artistic skills related to creativity and uncertainty management. Three critics have emerged to contest such artistic interventions in organizations: technical criticism, highlighting practical difficulties of the process; representational criticism which relies on social representations of art; conceptual criticism, which shows unbridgeable differences between art and management. This article explores contemporary art as a potential answer to these critics. Contemporary art gives up esthetic matters and does not need any know-how: everyone can practice it (technical answer). This post-esthetic art appears rather as a professional method than transcendental inspiration (representational answer). The difficult transition between these representations contributes to a greater creativity (conceptual answer). Switching to the paradigm of contemporary art shows the importance of the translation process between art and management, which should be placed at the heart of arts-based methods.