Institutional Theory

‘Many times Danto specified that he was “often credited with being the founder of the institutional theory, though in fact it was George Dickie whose theory it was, even if it arose in his mind through his interpretation of a sentence” present in “The Artworld” (Danto 2012, 298). These words seem to be a plain acknowledgment of a theory’s paternity but, actually, they follow decades of bitter confrontations. In the “Preface” of his milestone, The Transfiguration of the Commonplace, Danto writes: “I am very grateful to […] those who have erected something called the Institutional Theory of Art on the analysis of “The Artworld”, even if the theory itself is quite alien to anything I believe” (Danto 1981: VIII). This is quite a severe statement but it shows only a rejection of paternity; it does not express the reasons for this complete refusal. There would not be a better explanation until the publication of “The Art World Revisited” (Danto 1992) in which Danto rethinks his theory and gives more reasons for his interpretation of Dickie’s theory. When Danto writes that he “thought of the art world as the historically ordered world of artworks, enfranchised by theories which themselves are historically ordered” (Danto 1991, 38), he admits that his “was a kind of institutional theory, in that the art world is itself institutionalized” (Danto 1981, 38). Nevertheless, it was not the institutional theory, which was the result of a “creative misunderstanding” (ibid) of his work by George Dickie, “who was less concerned with what makes a work of art like Warhol’s possible than what makes it actual” (ibid). Moreover, for Danto, Dickie’s “notion of the art world was pretty much the body of experts who confer that status on something by fiat” (ibid). In this way, Danto concludes, “Dickie’s theory implies a kind of empowering elite” (ibid). In these passages it is possible to observe the main differences between the two theories from the standpoint of Danto: he defines his artworld as an institutionalized world made of historically ordered artworks and theories, different from the institutional theory of art, which tries to define the work of art through the legitimisation of an elite or a body of experts. It is possible to infer that Danto is not interested in a definition of art but only in a definition of a theory that can justify the existence of artworks such as Warhol’s. Moreover he refuses to be linked to Dickie’s theory, which is, to him, affected by a strict causality: someone – or a group of people – declares that something is art and the object becomes art. Seen in this way, it is imperative to agree with The SOAS Journal of Postgraduate Research, Vol. 8 (2015) 39 Danto that the problem of this theory “is that something is art when declared to be art by the art world” with the consequent questions: “Who is the art world?” and “How does one get to be a member of it?” (Danto 1991, 38). The opposition shown by Danto towards Dickie is somewhat awkward. It seems to be more of a pre-emptive defence towards possible critics opposed to his theory than a real analysis of the Institutional Theory. Is it not possible, in fact, to ask the same questions to Danto? Is it enough to assert that a theory is “historically ordered” to make it objective? Is not the historically ordered theory composed by people as well? And also, the reverse: is not the elite that chooses artworks historically ordered and always guided by a theory – even if it is not extensively formulated, such as the one of Danto?’2