Art worlds and their ethnographers

Artists and other creative workers stand in a complex relationship to ethnographers because, historically, they have shared with social science the goals of social reflexivity and critique. At the same time, artworld agents have their own reputational and economic interests in the outcomes of the research. In this article, grounded in our ethnographic research (both participant observation and in-depth interviews) with professional and self-taught artists, collectors, curators, and dealers, we examine the positive and negative aspects of collaboration with artworld informants.