Art Patronage

Drawing examples from a wide range of African cultures, this ground-breaking book expands the continuing discourse on the aesthetic and cultural significance of cloth, body and dress in Africa and moves beyond contextual analysis to consider the broader application of cloth and dress to art forms in other media. In blending the concerns of Art History and Anthropology, the authors focus on the art patronage systems that stimulate production, consumption, commodification and cultural meaning, and emphasize the overriding importance of cloth to aesthetic and cultural expression in African societies. Through this approach they reveal complex processes that involve a series of actors, including textile artists, commissioning-patrons and consumer-patrons, all of whom shape cloth and dress traditions. These individuals not only influence production, but are a key to understanding the cultural meaning of cloth and dress and, by extension, the body in Africa.

Taking the dichotomy of nonprofit "high culture" and for-profit "popular culture" into consideration, this volume assesses the relationship between social purpose in the arts and industrial organization. DiMaggio brings together some of the best works in several disciplines that focus on the significance of the nonprofit form for our cultural industries, the ways in which nonprofit arts organizations are financed, and the constraints that patterns of funding place on the missions that artists and trustees may wish to pursue. Showing how the production and distribution of art are organized in the United States, the book delineates the differing roles of nonprofit organizations, proprietary firms, and government agencies. In doing so, it brings to the surface some of the special tensions that beset arts management and policy, the way the arts are changing or are likely to change, and the policy alternatives "high culture" faces.