Collecting contemporary art : a visual analysis of a qualitative investigation into patterns of collecting and production

• Main Author: Luther, Anne-Katrin
• Published: University of the Arts London 2016
• Subjects: 709.05; American Society and Culture studies
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.693307

The dissertation presents a cultural analysis of contemporary art collecting and art production with an illustration of patterns that overlap in collecting and art production practices in contemporary art. The illustrated visual network shows how institutions, local context, social strategies and prestige overlap in their influences on art production as a cause for collecting contemporary art. Economic exchange, reputation, a perception of time, and the personal and emotional understanding of objects and material are four patterns that illustrate reasons for collecting contemporary art in conclusion. This analysis is based on a visualisation of the structured field data that was generated in a participatory field study in the New York art world, consisting of semi-structured interviews between 2013 – 2015. Limitations in usability and interface design, and the need for a sufficient visualisation tool for qualitative data analysis, drew the focus of this study to the development of a new data visualisation software. After a peer-reviewed process, the software Entity Mapper was selected for use in this thesis to visually analyse the collected and structured data. The analysis takes location, size, hierarchy and movement of the structured data in the visual map into consideration for concluding theoretical statements.