Art Associations and Symbolic Competition: Mapping Artistic Movements Using Exhibition Catalogues of 1871-1917

The given work is aimed to dig into the sociology of art and institutional theory to explore social institutions in the cultural field that affect artistic careers. Sociologists are investigating this field with the interest to explore social inequality and mechanisms of how the field of art is working. This topic was largely discussed by P. Bourdieu (1993), Whites(1993), Braden(2009), and other scholars with the focus on how different institutions of art are important (Bourdieu, 1993; Braden, 2009; White & White, 1993). However, this paper concentrates on the Russian case. My work is putting the focus on the system that was established from the late nineteen to the early twenty centuries, where existed professional societies of artists, who took their economical efforts to promote themselves. These associations were an alternative to state funding organizations as Academia or charity organizations. This work explores how the individual efforts of artists in these exhibition societies relate to the chances of posthumous consecration. In this way investigation of such question with the use of exhibition, practices are beneficial. Art exhibitions create artistic and monetary value and influence the consecration of artists and their works (Accominotti, 2016). Moreover, this social institution gives actors involved in art production opportunities for social mobility as well as help the creation of reputations in the field (White & White, 1993). Exhibition information is reflected in art exhibition catalogs, a useful source for counting and receiving quantifiable information (Herrero, 2010). The questions that this paper is aimed to answer are more descriptive. What information can be received from exhibition catalogs? How the activity of an artist during their lives is influencing the posthumous consecration? Who become successful in the symbolic competition from the point of consecration by descendants and what exhibition trajectories were more successful?