artworld means A group or network of people involved in the production, commission, preservation, promotion, criticism, and sale of art. Lexicurio rates it Sui generis — a strength score of 91 out of 100.
Why “artworld” is a great word
ARTWORLD — [Noun] The collective network of individuals and institutions involved in the creation, exhibition, criticism, and commerce of art. From a compounding of “art” and “world,” the term was popularized in the 1960s by philosopher and art critic Arthur Danto. Unlike "art scene" (which suggests a localized, ephemeral milieu) or "art market" (which denotes a strictly commercial exchange), the artworld is the vast, institutional apparatus that confers legitimacy and meaning. It is the hushed reverence of a white-cube gallery, the dense theoretical prose of a quarterly journal, and the calculated handshake between curator and collector—the invisible architecture that decides what, for a time, we agree to call art.
Etymology
From art + world, popularized by art critic Arthur Danto (1924–2013), see quotations.
noun
- A group or network of people involved in the production, commission, preservation, promotion, criticism, and sale of art.“Fashion, as it happens, favors certain rows of the style matrix: museums, connoisseurs, and others are makeweights in the Artworld. […] Brillo boxes enter the artworld with that same tonic incongruity the commedia dell'arte characters bring into Ariadne auf Naxos.”