The Art Firm: Aesthetic Management and Metaphysical Marketing (Stanford Business Books) [Hardcover]

Pierre Guillet De Monthoux (Author)

Book Description

Series: Stanford Business Books | Publication Date: January 13, 2004

The Art Firm explores the seemingly unorthodox alliance of the arts, management, and marketing. Art firms—as avant-garde enterprises and arts corporations—have existed for at least two hundred years, using texts, images, and other types of art to create corporate wealth. This book investigates how to apply the methods artists use in creating value to the methods more traditional managers use in running their businesses.

Guillet de Monthoux offers a crash course in aesthetics from Kant to Gadamer, showing how aesthetic management and metaphysical marketing can create value. Using case studies of successful art managers from Richard Wagner to Robert Wilson, the author illustrates the creative role—so central to value-making in contemporary economies—performed by aesthetic play in art firms. Along the way, Guillet de Monthoux points out how responsible aesthetic management and marketing can eradicate the problems of banality and totality, the two capital sins of an art-based economy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Expansive in its scope, The Art Firm is one of the most interesting management books I’ve read in some time. It is eloquently written and delivers important conclusions that will be of enduring importance. It should become the authoritative work on the relationship of art and aesthetics and the practice of business.”—Robert D. Austin, Harvard Business School, Author of Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know About How Artists Work

“Although there are many books that purport to address the issues of business and the arts, I have yet to find such an engaging, challenging, and intellectually playful investigation of these issues as The Art Firm. Guillet de Monthoux romps through European thought and artistic enterprises with remarkable agility. This work, peppered with illustrative examples from history to the present day, asks important questions of our management oriented culture.”—Ruth Bereson, Program in Arts Administration, Teachers College, Columbia University

“By evoking—really depicting and conjuring—successful models from both art and business, Guillet de Monthoux convincingly demonstrates that managers must look beyond the traditional places for their ideas of how to run businesses. This book is particularly timely, offering a valuable and too long neglected perspective on ‘creative’ and ‘inspired’ ways to run businesses.”—Claire Hill, Chicago-Kent College of Law

“This is a wonderfully readable and delightful text, reminiscent of the energy of Zizek’s cultural diagnoses.”—Choice

“Guillet de Monthoux’s close contact with the cultural world and its players... leads to an important contribution to our understanding of organization and the broader economy as captured in this book.”—Organization Studies

From the Inside Flap

The Art Firm explores the seemingly unorthodox alliance of the arts, management, and marketing. Art firms—as avant-garde enterprises and arts corporations—have existed for at least two hundred years, using texts, images, and other types of art to create corporate wealth. This book investigates how to apply the methods artists use in creating value to the methods more traditional managers use in running their businesses.
Guillet de Monthoux offers a crash course in aesthetics from Kant to Gadamer, showing how aesthetic management and metaphysical marketing can create value. Using case studies of successful art managers from Richard Wagner to Robert Wilson, the author illustrates the creative role—so central to value-making in contemporary economies—performed by aesthetic play in art firms. Along the way, Guillet de Monthoux points out how responsible aesthetic management and marketing can eradicate the problems of banality and totality, the two capital sins of an art-based economy.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 408 pages
• Publisher: Stanford Business Books; 1 edition (January 13, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804748136
• ISBN-13: 978-0804748131
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,389,145 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On Building an Art Firm..., May 23, 2005

By 

N. Evan Van Zelfden (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Art Firm: Aesthetic Management and Metaphysical Marketing (Stanford Business Books) (Hardcover)

When Pierre Guillet de Monthoux wrote The Art Firm, he provided us with a Rosetta stone. Some people understood the language of business. Other people understood the language of art. But no one understands this language of Aesthetics.

Until now.

Mr. Guillet de Monthoux shows us clearly, through the history of Aesthetics, and of avant-garde art, how this business of being relates to the art of management and to the management of art. When you finish, everything will be illuminated.

This book is (or should be) the blueprint for every successful Art Firm. Any business that requires imagination will fit this model. Anyone wanting to create great business and great art should buy this book, read it, understand it, and use it as a cornerstone.

It is an exhilarating book, and a significant one. When you finish the last chapter, everything clicks, and it you will leave ebullient. If you understand how this model works, you can harness the power of Aesthetics, and that energy will pull your firm forward.

It isn't often that a book makes your heart sing. And even rarer for a business book to do so. By the end, you will say: "I don't want to make art. I want to make art work."

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Experience and History, December 19, 2004

By 

Steffen Konrath "IM-BOOT.org, Creative People... (Kiefersfelden, Germany) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Art Firm: Aesthetic Management and Metaphysical Marketing (Stanford Business Books) (Hardcover)

This book is for those who would like to investigate the impact of Art not only on society but on management issues as well. This lovely serendipity walk guides us through the history and allows amazing insights. As Pierre says, "art firms might conceivably serve as models for helping firms generate aesthetic energy by stimulating technicians, artists, critics, and audience to maintain Schwung in aesthetic play".

Guillet de Monthoux describes a new emerging manager, who feels the need to go beyond sponsorship and who really embeds art into business. He carries on to write, "Success is no longer measured by being as artistically creative with given hardware as theaters have been using texts and images, signs and colors to make art work." --- Here we are, facing a transformation of managerial theory to aesthetic management. It's really exciting to read and impressive regarding the deep knowledge he shows.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book !, March 15, 2004

By 

Martin Rössel (Sweden) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art Firm: Aesthetic Management and Metaphysical Marketing (Stanford Business Books) (Hardcover)

The Art Firm investigates how to apply the methods artists use to create value in their work to the methods managers use to run their businesses. Cases of aesthetic management are cited to illustrate the range of possibilities inherent in this type of application and to understand the potential of this type of operation in the art-based economies of tomorrow.
Absolutely great book, I recommend it to everyone who
works with art management in any form.