Are Artists the Better Managers? Perspectives on a Participatory Understanding of Cultural Management

Abstract

Recent concepts of a democratic public sphere have repercussions for arts and cultural management. My article will map out the idea that such concepts lead to defining a shared production of cultural meaning as cultural management’s guiding principle, which brings about a change in the role of arts and cultural managers. Based on a research study investigating how participatory arts management processes can initiate and professionally coordinate processes of cultural meaning production, I will focus on a communicative management approach that is defined as a moderated but collaborative and circular process in which perspectives and attitudes are publicly generated, gathered, and distributed. The cultural and ethical responsibility of cultural managers is hereby seen as rooted within a process of mediating between hegemonic and alternative attributions of meaning in which initiating and moderating a temporary participatory public is understood as one of the central objectives.