Sandpiles of Opportunity: Success in the Art World

Abstract

This study conceptualizes artists' careers as transitions through positions within a constantly shifting web of relationships that are without a priori hierarchical demarcations. Network analysis of this shifting web from 1981 to 1992 produces three distinct career paths with differential outcomes in terms of the amount of critical notice received by each artist Those who have had a long history of membership in loosely knit networks receive more critical attention than either artists who have had a long history of membership in tightly knit cliques or those with a history of sporadic connections to the art world. The career ladder is not so much a ladder as it is a sandpile, in which each actor's attempts to reach the top change the shape of the climb.

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