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Artworld/s explores my research on the reputational economy of the artworld. At its heart is the idea, posited by many, that theories and artworks share an important capacity and limitation – they are both capable of recreating the world by describing it but both remain confined to offering a partial perspective.

My research develops a poststructuralist account of the artworld – a macro account that examines how hierarchy and discourse are continually transformed by shifting relationships between artworld subfields (e.g. biennial art, Sunday painters) and by external relationships between the artworld and legitimating fields, such as politics, commerce, academia, and media. A screen-printed map - inspired by the maps produced by the East India Company - renders my account.  

But my account being necessarily partial, it is best tempered by the many insights provided by ethnographic and ‘phenomenological’ accounts of artworld hierarchy – micro accounts that explain the artworld from the perspective of its denizens. Inspired by the fantastic, satirical etchings of Francisco Goya, these accounts are rendered in a series of copper-plate etchings that examine a variety of artworld experiences, such as autonomy, precarity, and exploitation.  

By forcing a collision between these perspectives, Artworld/s aims to foster unique interpretations – new ideas that can help us understand a reality too complex for any single representation to capture.