application/pdf
2036-461X
16225
31
en
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Ph.D. Thesis Abstract - Representations of the Worlds of Contemporary Art on French Television from 1960 to 2013: From Media Representation to Mediation
Text.Serial.Journal
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie
19
Projects & Abstracts
2018-10-01
2021-09-03
2018-10-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Clémence de Montgolfier
2018/10/01
Paris III Sorbonne-Nouvelle
2036-461X
31
en
Ph.D. Thesis Abstract - Representations of the Worlds of Contemporary Art on French Television from 1960 to 2013: From Media Representation to Mediation
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/16225/16946
19
Representations of the Worlds of Contemporary Art on French
Television from 1960 to 2013: From Media Representation to
Mediation
Clémence de Montgolfier / Ph.D. Thesis Abstract1
Paris III Sorbonne-Nouvelle




   This research in the field of Information-Communication Sciences has been
conducted under the supervision of Professor François Jost at Paris III Sorbonne-
Nouvelle and was presented on 29 November 2017. Its aim is to determine how
French television has been representing the worlds of contemporary art from the
1960s to the present day, and to define the implications of this representation
in regard to culture and the evolution of media in general. Here we define
contemporary art through a historical and sociological approach in the field of
visual arts, with the works of Catherine Millet, Philippe Dagen, Howard Becker
and Raymonde Moulin.2 The research is based on a semiological and pragmatic
analysis of a corpus of archives of television programs about contemporary art.
I used the methodology of François Jost,3 taking into account their context of
production and reception for each time period.
   I observed a continuous decrease in the percentage of television programs
about the arts in general, and contemporary art specifically. These programs are
also relegated to less favourable hours of programming since the 1980s, being
aired mainly late at night. Even though the volume of television programs in
general has never ceased to increase since 1960, programs about contemporary
art have been less and less visible.
   Furthermore, the way that television tries to transmit the artistic experience
has also evolved. Whereas the programs from 1960 to 1980 aimed to transmit
the aesthetic experience of the artworks as seen from the field, with numerous
close-ups and slow camera movements, the programs between 1980 and 2000
were more dialogical and hosted discussions between experts and artists in
the television studio. Showing very few negative critiques, they fell under the
discourse of cultural promotion and did not encourage the discussion of the


1
  Ph. D. Thesis supervised by Professor François Jost. For information: c.montgolfier@gmail.com
2
  Catherine Millet, L’art contemporain en France (Paris: Flammarion, 2015); Philippe Dagen, L’art
dans le monde de 1960 à nos jours (Paris: Editions Hazan, 2012); Howard S. Becker, Art Worlds
(Los Angeles and Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); Raymonde Moulin, L’artiste,
l’institution et le marché (Paris: Flammarion, 2009).
3
   François Jost, Introduction à l’analyse de la télévision (3e édition) (Paris: Ellipses Marketing,
2007).

                                                          Cinéma & Cie, vol. XIX, no. 31, Fall 2018
                               Clémence de Montgolfier


contents of the artworks themselves. Rather, they often focused on emphasizing
the role of public arts institutions. Since the 2000s, as the competition between
the French public and private television sectors grew stronger with the launch
of the Télévision Numérique Terrestre in 2005 and the rise of digital platforms,
television shows about contemporary art have been taking on the entertaining
forms of reality shows. This reality television of contemporary art, for example
Tous pour l’art! (Arte, 2012), now proposes new frames of productions for
artworks, created under the eyes of the camera, with specific constraints set up
by the production team. Ideological contradictions arise between the cultural
mediation mission, carried on by the Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision
Française and later public channels, and those new narratives of competition
that tend to celebrate individual success. Contemporary art then finds itself at
the heart of conflicts regarding the definition of culture.
   First, the evolution of contemporary art on television since the 1960s in France
shows important sociocultural issues. Its media coverage reveals a hegemonic
world of art where sociocultural inequalities are legitimated and even sometimes
celebrated. Only the most successful artists can benefit from high visibility,
making precarious artists, women artists and non-white artists nearly invisible
on television. The cultural legitimacy of this televised world of art is hierarchical:
institutions and museums benefit from the largest amount of legitimacy, whereas
the audience seems to be considered illegitimate in knowing and understanding
contemporary art.
   Another significant point is that the evolution of the notion of contemporary
art in the programs follows the visions of the successive Ministries of Culture
since 1959, in accordance with the missions of cultural decentralization in the
1960s, cultural development in the 1970s and later of cultural democracy since
the 1980s that were carried on by each government over the years. Thus, a
hegemonic institutional vision of contemporary art seems to perpetuate, with
public channels and public policies aiming at the same cultural goals. Surprisingly
however, few direct collaborations were found between the Ministries of Culture
and the ORTF or later the public audiovisual sector to produce shows about art.
   Second, the analysis has shown that television programs about contemporary
art create different narratives about art as a way to connect with and appeal to
an audience. Two main types of narratives can be recognized: first the programs
promise an ideal of democratization of contemporary art through narratives of
accessing knowledge, presenting itself as a source of emancipation and equality
for the collective good. This comes into contradiction with the second type of
narrative, which is competition-oriented and highlights the values of singularity,
innovation and originality in the most recent programs influenced by reality
television. It appears that the narratives of contemporary art on television follow
both collective or individual purposes, and those two often impede each other.
   Lastly, the audiovisual mediation of the artworks has evolved, over more
than fifty years, from the filmed exhibition to a ‘curatorial’ television, where the
programs organize exhibitions for television only, for example in L’Exposition

152
         Representations of the Worlds of Contemporary Art on French Television


impossible (France 2, 2004 to 2006). Public channels continue to claim their
role of bringing the experience of the artworks to the audience together with
knowledge about those works, but the artworks themselves are now rarely
shown on camera, as programs are shorter and the editing increasingly faster
than in previous decades. On the television set, the artworks seem to be used
only to signify their own authenticity and originality rather than to be observed
or discussed. Moreover, today, shows about contemporary art promise more
immediacy — the promise of giving direct access to the artworks without any
mediation — while multiplying the dispositifs of mediation. This multiplication
of the frames of mediation of the artworks and of discourses about them — from
channels, institutions, experts, mediators, journalists, television hosts — lessens
the role of the audience who is supposed to receive those works but who is not
invited to participate in this discourse.
   It is within this impossibility to decide what their purpose is — to create a
relationship between artworks and audiences, or to incite the audience to
consume cultural products and participate in cultural promotion — that
television programs about contemporary art cannot seem to hold their promises.
In this way, this research opens not only many new questions for the arts on
television in general, but also for the cultural role of French television today and
the challenges it has to face.




                                                                                  153
