George Dickie (b. 1926, USA – d. 2020, USA)
Institutional theory of art

“A work of art in the classificatory sense is 1) an artifact 2) on which some person or persons acting on behalf of a certain social institution (the artworld) has conferred the status of candidate for appreciation.” (Dickie 1971, 101)

I find the institutional theory relevant and useful – and have also been referring it in some conceptual works, like “Find The Art Piece” where my challenge to find my artwork in the room transformed everything in the room into “candidates of appreciation”, and, consequentially – into art.

Then I am also actively opposing that theory in my attempts to carve out my own art niche where my interest is more on encounter between the artwork and the audience rather than on institutional consecration of artworks. It remains to be seen, however, how I am going to deal with definition of art in my emerging theory, as for the time being I am only assuming existence of “artworks” without really defining them. It is possible that I am going to leave that definition to the “eye of the beholder”, but I may also need to provide some more specific qualification. Work in progress.

References
Dickie, George, 1971. Aesthetics, An Introduction. Indianapolis: Pegasus.