A media strategic artwork : -      a discourse analytic study of the media attention concerning Okänd, kvinna 2009 – 349701 

This thesis is an analysis of the media attention concerning the artist Anna Odell and her artwork Okänd, kvinna 2009 – 349701. The main materials I have used come from newspapers and articles where critics discuss Odell´s artwork in the period 2009 to 2015. The theoretical and methodological framework is based on Arthur C. Danto, George Dickie and Howard Beckers understanding of the art world and how artwork and artist receive their status. Another theoretical tool I have used is a discourse theory of Mara Lee. Lee helped me to understand the language and the relations between power and institutions. My aim with this thesis has been to understand how Okänd, kvinna 2009 – 349701 achieved its value and its transformation from a bad to a good evaluation. Why did Odell, in the beginning, get blamed for using tax money, tricking people in to believing that she was mentally ill resulting to the attention of the police, but in the end became an appreciated artist for this very same action? Odell was criticized for her behavior and was accused of stepping over a line for using art in a questionable way. A discussion started about the question of what art is. And what the purpose of art in society is. A few years later, in 2015, Odell was called one of the most interesting artists in Sweden by art critics when they wrote about Okänd, kvinna 2009 – 349701. What changed in the eyes of the critics? What is artistic quality and how can we understand the transformation that Odell´s artwork underwent? My analysis shows that esthetic quality depends on the situation and in ethics and morality. At the beginning the critics compared Okänd, kvinna 2009 – 349701 and the profession of psychiatry and in that comparison the psychiatry profession is more important than art. People attributed more confidence to a doctor than to a student of art regarding the truth about what happened at the psychiatric institution of St: Göran´s on the 21th of January 2009.