Niklas Luhmann never claimed to be an expert on the arts. However, the German sociologist offers a highly instructive, comprehensive and theoretically consistent perspective on art in its various dimensions. Luhmann draws on extensive empirical and theoretical insights in order to develop a substantive theory that applies to different branches of art, including visual art, music, poetry and literature, performing arts, and their various subgenres. This approach is deeply embedded both in his general theory of social systems and his theory of society and its evolution. His definitive account on art, Art as a Social System, published three years before his death, applies to art major innovations in both of these theoretical fields, intertwining a structural description of the art system with an analysis of its evolution and differentiation as a function system in modern society. In particular, Luhmann sheds new light on core topics in the sociology of arts which include the production, reception and mediation of artworks.

Luhmann’s sociological interest in the roots of art poses a seemingly simple question: How is art possible? He rejects both ontological and normative concepts in answering this question. His interest does not lie in improving existing constellations, or realising hidden potentials. Rather, he insists that asking how art is possible requires that a society has already generatedwhat sociologists identify as art. Luhmann’s method investigates how social processes and structures have shaped what we know as art, assuming, however, that everything is contingent, and developments improbable. Potentially, art (as we know it) could be something totally different, or not existing at all. Starting with such an artificial irritation of supposed givens, sociologists need to understand how art has emerged in society. Rejecting teleological and deterministic concepts, Luhmann furthermore explains why developments have taken place that led to the evolution of an art system in society. Based on functional analysis, art in its various dimensions is assumed to be a solution (among a virtual multiplicity of functional equivalents) in relation to a problem located in society. This general research strategy leads to Luhmann’s comprehensive theory of art, in which art in form of artworks is analysed as a specific mode of communication.