The myth of recognition through cultural democratization

Artistic recognition is less about talent than about a social game that some refuse to participate in. A reflection on alternative paths to creative legitimacy.

The meritocratic illusion of cultural democratization

Cultural democratization, in its stated ambition to make great works accessible to all humanity, conceals a cruel paradox. Many artists, whose contribution to art could be qualified as essential, remain forever excluded from this process of institutional recognition. These creators, fully conscious of their status as artists, encounter an invisible wall that separates them from the pantheon of “official artists”.

This exclusion often generates profound bitterness, that of never gaining access to the system of consecration of great works, that imaginary temple where each creation should, according to the democratic myth, find its place according to its merit. Yet, we must acknowledge that many of these works would amply deserve such recognition. As Pierre Bourdieu observes in The Rules of Art. Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field (1992), “the value of the work of art is not inscribed in the work itself but in the field of production and circulation of symbolic goods.”

The temptation would be to classify these artists in the category of outsider art, for example, but this would be a conceptual error. Outsider art, as defined by Jean Dubuffet in 1945, designates artistic productions created by people foreign to official artistic culture, autodidacts, marginals, the mentally ill, prisoners, mystics. However, I am speaking here of artists who fully envision themselves as such, who claim this creative identity, but remain on the margins of the recognition system.

Hierarchization as a principle of domination

We could then relate these artists to what we call “amateur” creation, which reveals the profoundly hierarchical nature of the art system. Indeed, this categorization postulates an intrinsic qualitative difference: amateurs would produce works of lesser value than professionals, the latter being supposed to work more, better, with more talent, better culture, better training, a better CV and better integration into the professional milieu. This hierarchization serves to exclude amateur production from the outset from the cultural democratization process, and places it alongside what has the value of being shared. Moreover, we can see this clearly in artistic practice workshops, in which amateur artists participate; their productions never enter any patrimony whatsoever, they are considered inferior.

But on what criteria are these hierarchies established? The case of Vincent van Gogh remains emblematic: a genius artist unrecognized during his lifetime, he embodies the exception that proves the rule. His posthumous recognition stems from a succession of sociological coincidences rather than a “natural” recognition of talent. How many other Van Goghs have passed and will pass into total oblivion? This lottery of posterity feeds the illusory hopes of numerous artists who dream of future recognition, which will most likely never come, even if it may reassure them.

Recognition thus becomes a quantitative or institutional criterion, varying according to the subjective perceptions of each artist (professional or amateur). Certain creators whom we consider fully recognized may themselves feel insufficiently valued, for example. The criteria of one’s own recognition are nothing universal or objective; they stem from pure subjectivity shaped by the social and personal expectations of each individual.

The double investment: creation and social strategy

What strikes me most in observing the artistic milieu is the distribution of time and energy among “recognized” artists. An empirical rule seems to emerge: they devote approximately 50% of their resources to creation proper, and the remaining 50% to the methodical construction of their place in the artistic social space.

This second half comprises organizing exhibitions, participating in competitions, pursuing higher education in prestigious schools, patiently building a network of social relations, assiduous frequentation of spaces where cultural sector professionals evolve. As Howard Becker emphasizes in Art Worlds (1982), “art is collective action” that requires the collaboration of numerous actors beyond the sole creator.

The true key to recognition does not reside, contrary to the romantic myth, in the intrinsic value of the work, which would be recognized by a transcendent legitimating instance. It lies in the very absence of the need for recognition, coupled with a natural appetite for social relations and the desire to socially embody the role of artist, which differs radically from the simple act of creating.

Self-legitimation as the key to paradoxical recognition

“Recognized” artists dare precisely because they already feel legitimate. They do not wait for external validation to act. They have granted themselves not only their artistic legitimacy (that which allows them to create), but also their social legitimacy as artists, a fundamental distinction that many neglect.

This self-recognition allows them to invest the social field with pleasure rather than out of obligation. They participate in the hierarchization system not as victims but as consenting actors, deliberately choosing the narratives and typologies to which they wish to belong. I do not claim that the quality of their creation is negligible, it effectively represents 50% of the equation. A “bad artist” will certainly encounter difficulties even with excellent social skills, but never absolute blockage.

The true obstacle lies less in the absence of external recognition than in the lack of self-legitimation. Those who wait for others to validate them condemn themselves to an impasse. Here’s why: spectators, the public, the milieu, already established in their own sense of legitimacy, have in reality no reason to risk recognition toward someone who has not first recognized himself. This process is almost like a social game: it highlights qualities of presence and self-affirmation more than purely artistic competencies. Paradoxically, the recognition mechanism is often reversed: “unrecognized” artists solicit public validation, but the public refuses them, as I just explained, while artists who fully assume their own social value implicitly offer the public a space of security and validation. It is in this way that the public can experience confirmation of its own taste or aesthetic judgment: because the artist, in recognizing himself, has already extended this recognition to them. In other words, it is not so much the public that consecrates the artist as the artist who, in self-legitimating, legitimates the public. It is the public that needs to be legitimated by an artist who feels legitimate, not the reverse!

Toward an emancipatory cultural democracy

Faced with this observation, what can we say to those who feel unrecognized? Let us observe the time they devote to social connections: it will almost always be derisory, or if it exists, it will be marked by mistrust, fear, even resentment toward those from whom they expect recognition. Their attempts at social action lack authentic openness to others, imprisoned as they are by this impossible expectation.

It is here that the perspective of cultural rights and cultural democracy offers a liberating alternative to cultural democratization. As Patrice Meyer-Bisch advocates, cultural democracy “recognizes the equal dignity of cultures and everyone’s right to participate in the cultural life of their choice.” It postulates the equal legitimacy of each person to contribute to the life of the city, without prior hierarchization.

In this horizontal and open framework, facilitated today by digital networks, even the most discreet artist can find their audience. If they accept to see their situation from this angle, their identity need for recognition will fade. They will know that they are intrinsically legitimate, like each person, and that their creation possesses its own value, outside the system of domination. Even with a single spectator or reader, the creation will have enriched the human bond, and art, as a shared experience, will have accomplished the essential.

Emancipating from the myth to embrace one’s place

I establish no moral hierarchy between these different approaches. I do not claim that unrecognized artists would be more “pure” than others. My empathy simply goes toward these creators who suffer from a fantasy of participation in a system that, fundamentally, has nothing particularly noble about it. I invite them to love their place as it is, to fully taste its value.

These artists whom bitterness gnaws could, by changing perspective, appreciate their unique position in cultural democracy. Perhaps then, relaxed and freed from their impossible expectations, they would leave the door a little more open to the discoverability of their works. Not to participate in the system of domination, but to definitively free themselves from it and create on their own terms, in full consciousness of their intrinsic legitimacy.

For in the end, as John Dewey reminds us in Art as Experience (1934), “the work of art is not complete until it operates in the experience of others than the one who created it.” This completeness requires neither institutional recognition nor critical consecration, simply the authentic encounter between a creation and a gaze, even if unique, which today’s communication systems fully authorize, the digital space being intrinsically a space of cultural democracy.