Tag Archives: policies for culture

The cultural policy and the artist or how to build in SEEurope “a sample continent for the innovation principle”

In his book published in 2002, “Portrait of an artist as worker”, French sociologist Pierre
Michel Menger is developing an interesting theory that places the artist and the specificity of
his type of labour as a symbol of the new kind of relationship established by the modern
world between the individual at work and his environment. He is stating that the image of the
artistic creativity is today more and more perceived as a crucial factor in the universe of
productivity, and the very special status and characteristics of the artistic work: dealing with
complexity, being innovative and autonomous, flexible and mobile corresponds more and
more to the requested profile of the new man at labour in the western society. Arts are for
Menger “laboratories of flexibility” and the artist’s type of labour profile embodies the profile
of the modern worker.