Welcome to BUSINESS & DESIGN LAB seminar series about Art, Design and Organization!

The first seminar will be held on Monday, December 9, 2013, at 13.15-15.00 at the Gothenburg Research Institute.

Erik Wikberg, PhD candidate in Business Administration at Stockholm School of Economics, will present the paper: “Categorization and Collaboration: the Case of the Primary Sale Abstract Possible”, co-authored with Niklas Bomark, PhD candidate in Business Administration at Uppsala University.

Registration at elena.raviola@gri.gu.se is appreciated by December 6.

We hope to see you there!

Best regards, Elena Raviola, Ulla Johansson-Sköldberg, Marja Soila-Wadman

Abstract: The Swedish Contemporary Art World with its center in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, is made up of a disperse set of actors with their own historical and clearly distinguishable ideological stances on what art ought to be and how to organize it – facilitated by social sanctions for violators (Wikberg and Strannegård 2012). For instance, while artists should view art for art sake, galleries and auction houses often and also see art as means for making money. However, despite the risk of social sanctions for breaking the norms, a collaborative project between a publicly financed museum and an auction house was set up in the beginning of 2012. Through a qualitative data, collected from interviews and newspaper articles, and drawing upon literature of symbolic boundaries (Bourdieu 1984; Lamont and Molnar 2002), we illustrate in this paper how the collaboration between the two diametrically oppositional actors made the symbolic boundaries around them stronger, calling attention to their respective incompatible social position. This study indicates how a collaborative project between diametrically oppositional actors rather than transgress symbolic boundaries, reinforce them. The study furthermore echoes, critiques and problematizes an international trend in which publicly financed art institutions are politically subjected to seek private-public partnerships. Keywords; arts management, symbolic boundaries, collaboration, oppositional boundaries.

Short bio: Erik Wikberg enrolled in the PhD Program at Stockholm School of Economics in 2011. His dissertation work is focused on organizations and markets in the art world. Recent and on-going studies include international case studies of architectural firms in Beijing, London, Lund, Rotterdam, Stockholm and Manchester, a study of the marketization and quantification of the Swedish art world for contemporary art, a study of the financing of new private contemporary art institutions in Stockholm, and a study of art and advertising in the case of Absolut Vodka.

About Business & Design Lab: Business & Design Lab contributes to the potentially constructive tension among design, business, and society through both research and education. We look for deeper understanding and new interesting questions in the field of design management. Our research approach combines more traditional methods of management research with artistic research interventions and representations. Through interaction and dialogue with practitioners in different organizations, we orchestrate and participate in processes that challenge taken-for-granted assumptions and critically examine theories of design and management, while also considering new opportunities that may be economically and socially beneficial. Our teachers and researchers have mixed backgrounds from the management and design fields, both as practitioners and scholars. Together we form a critical and artistically inspired edge in the international design management discourse. (From www.bdl.gu.se)