ABSTRACT
Arts consumption and consumers places an emphasis on the demand for the arts. What stimulates demand for the arts? Who are arts consumers? Consuming the arts can operate on several levels. Appreciators (spectators) are a core category as regular participants of the arts. They can be distinguished from non-appreciators, who do not include the arts as part of their regular basket of consumption goods and services. What accounts for arts consumption at the level of appreciation is discussed in the first section of the chapter. The interests of cultural economists and sociologists researching the arts both emphasize the cultivation of taste with different explanations. Cultural economics, as advanced by George Stigler and Gary Becker, emphasizes utility (satisfaction) maximization such that taste for the high arts is a form of addiction. The late Pierre Bourdieu is viewed as a pioneer in the sociology of art, with Paul DiMaggio, Howard Becker, Raymonde Moulin, Richard Peterson, and Vera Zolberg as other prominent contributors. The second section examines the pressing and complex issue of audience development: initiatives to encourage genuine audience development at the local level often confront structural barriers to widening arts participation. Advanced and more engaged levels of arts consumption – building on appreciation, which may lead to arts patronage such as commissioning contemporary operas or collecting fine art and antiques – is addressed in the third section. From a historical perspective, these are forms of elite recreational activity that require wealth. Attention on demand for the arts both counters and complements the focus on the supply side of the equation, namely building and strengthening the supply of artists and performing and visual arts organizations.
