Artistic legitimization, between traditional hierarchies and new digital forms, questions individual and collective recognition. By intersecting Dewey, Latour, and cultural rights, let’s explore how art and the mastery of symbolic objects (e.g., disability workshops) legitimize the individual, linking emancipation and social bonds.
The new phase of an institutional history
The process of artistic legitimization is traversed by dynamics of hierarchy and power. It is modified by digital transformations and the stakes of individual recognition. Traditionally, there are instances of power—subjective, financial, symbolic, and political—that consecrate a form of cultural domination associated with certain types of objects, aesthetics, and other strategic issues. Today, these are disrupted by new spaces of legitimization, notably through digital means. And beyond vertical or horizontal structures, a question persists: what fundamentally legitimizes art and, by extension, the individuals who produce it or identify with it?
I propose to quickly explore this issue by intersecting theoretical approaches (John Dewey, Bruno Latour) with concrete practices, particularly concerning the approach of cultural rights and the field of supporting people with disabilities. We will examine the tension between democratic horizontality and the need for individual legitimization, showing how the creation of social bonds and the symbolic mastery of objects can become vectors of emancipation.
Traditional instances and new legitimizations
Historically, artistic legitimization relies on instances that consecrate a form of cultural domination: institutions, the art market, media, communities, etc. This system of the “great” spectacle, of the “great” work, produces vertical recognition, often very exclusive and very excluding. One wants to “enter” the professional milieu, the cinema hall at the Cannes Festival where it is a scramble for domination, or even a performance hall, for which one can wait several hours in a state of stress: will we get in, will we be recognized or not? We find ourselves at the place of human vanities.
Yet, digital technology has introduced alternative forms of legitimization: collaborative platforms, self-publishing, independent circuits. This horizontality may seem democratic, but it raises questions, as purely horizontal recognition (“you are like us”) is not enough: it can level singularities without offering real social validation.
What is legitimizing, both for oneself and in the social space?
The link as a legitimizing foundation: Dewey and Latour
To overcome this vertical/horizontal opposition, we can mobilize two philosophers:
- John Dewey (Art as Experience): legitimacy emerges from shared experience, from art’s capacity to create bonds.
- Bruno Latour: the social is constructed in relationships, and it is this very construction that is legitimizing.
Creating bonds is not just an added soul: it is a political act, a way of representing the world and taking a place in it. Cultural rights, by insisting on the dignity of the person, formalize this idea: to contribute to society, one must first feel legitimized as an individual.
The individual before the collective? A methodological prerequisite
I advocate for an approach centered on the individual, for example, in my work with disabled people in professional reintegration through art. My method, influenced by psychoanalysis, involves the object as a legitimizing third party:
- Offering objects (tools, creative supports) and learning to master them allows for building competence.
- This mastery becomes a lever for peer recognition: the group perceives differently the one who masters a skill.
Concrete example: During a workshop, participants discover sculpture. The learned technique (a “symbolic” object) gives them legitimacy in the eyes of the group, modifying social dynamics. This approach is not the only possible one (others prioritize the collective), but it responds to a Western need for individual recognition.
Cultural rights: a framework to reconcile individual and collective
Cultural rights remind us that dignity is based on self-recognition, which requires spaces where the individual feels respected. The challenge is therefore to create collective frameworks that allow this validation, without falling into the pitfall of isolating individualism.
I insist: it is not about sequencing (“first the individual, then the collective”), but about thinking in circular interactions. A democratic workshop, for example, must both:
- Allow everyone to express themselves (individual legitimization).
- Transform this expression into a collective contribution (social legitimization).
Legitimizing to emancipate
The question of artistic legitimization goes beyond the field of art: it refers to citizenship. Being legitimized is acquiring the right to act on the world. Methods vary (psychoanalytic approach, collective work, etc.), but the objective remains the same: to create virtuous circles where individual recognition and collective action feed each other.
In this, cultural rights offer a precious compass, reminding us that culture is not a luxury, but a tool for reconstructing oneself—and therefore, society.
