En undersökning av Anselm Kiefers kulturella kapital

Abstract

Title: An investigation of Anselm Kiefer cultural capital The purpose of this thesis is to explore the concept of cultural capital from the definition created by Pierre Bourdieu, and how this concept can be related to the art market. I found quantitative method to be the most useful due to how it lets the researcher use the different components to create a complete overview of the subject matter. One of the thesis components are the German article titled kunstkompass. These articles rank artists based on much the same qualities as those which form the basis of cultural capital as a concept. However, whether these articles accurately capture cultural capital is debatable. I chose to nonetheless use these articles as a tool throughout my investigative process as I found no other source which quantified cultural capital to the same degree of success. Throughout my investigation I have also discovered the applicability of artist ranking lists such as kunstkompass to gain an understanding of an artists development through a more scientific point of view. This discovery will most definitely prove beneficial in the future. I chose to center my research on one specific artist, and through my findings draw a general conclusion of the correlation between the art market and an artists cultural capital. I chose to concentrate on the german artist Anselm Kiefer, and the evolution of his specific cultural capital. In order to understand the correlation between cultural capital and the art market, I combined Kiefer's cultural capital statistics with the sales statistics of his works from international auctions. My conclusion is that no correlation exists between the two entities. This might however be specific to the artist. In order to develop higher accuracy of this type of research I would suggest future researchers include a larger number of artists in their investigations. By doing so the correlation between cultural capital and the art market might increase in coherency and clarity.