The key concern of this paper is the institutional theory of art proposed by Georgie Dickie and Arthur Danto, but it also takes something of a detour through the work of Professor Donald Brook, who has recently made use of these theories as a foil for his own new theory of art. However, the major focus of my examination will be Dickle’s “Defining Art”, which was first published in the American Philosophical Quarterly in 1969, and Danto’s “The Artworld”, first published in 1964.
So why am I looking at this material in particular? It’s not “the latest thing from France” and isn't it a bit “out of date”? (As if theories had “useby” dates like perishable food - if not “eaten” quickly enough they go off.” In what way might this institutional theory be put on the agenda, become a somewhat palatable item on the menu? Well, while it may have been placed on the agenda by Donald Brook, his approach to it certainly doesn’t suggest that it is anything other than “off”. Interestingly, one of the key aims of locating an item on the agenda is to discuss it, and while Brook has seriously questioned the foundations of the Institutional approach (for example: “A New Theory of Art” British Journal of Aesthetics 1980; “What Art Is” Art Network 1982; “The Best Game in Town” Artlink 1986) little response either in support or opposition seems to have been forthcoming.
Now these comments about issues being “on” or “off” agendas lead me to believe that this writing might also need to justify its relevance. Perhaps one way of doing this might be to juxtapose two statements: first the “I don’t know... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline