Sociology of art and social network analysis

Abstract

This text introduces the issue on art and networks exploring the different aspects of the links and gaps between sociology of art and social network analysis. Although the founding works in sociology of art highlight the central role of interactions and relationships between members that structure the “world” or “field” of art, empirical research has rarely used the tools of social network analysis. The other way round, social network analysis has paid little attention to artistic activities. We show that nevertheless a meeting point could have been possible. We advance the hypothesis that this mutual ignorance is partly due to the different methodological perspectives privileged by both research fields. Furthermore, the art world and the scientific world show growing interest in each other. While artists follow the general growing interest on social networks and use the heuristic potential of graphs, scientists also improve the aesthetic dimension of graphs. At their crossroad new artworks emerge based on sociological questions that uses the tools of social network analysis. With a common outlook, this issue focuses on the work of young researchers who empirically show the fertile juncture between sociology of art and social network analysis.