This is an award under the Grants for Improving Doctoral Dissertation Research program. It is a study of institutional change and cultural production in the New York art world of the 1980s. It will be carried out through interviews and examination of existing documents at examples of three categories of establishments. Results will be analyzed in terms of theories of the modernizing thrust in the evolution of cultural institutions. This research will contribute to the rapidly-growing field of cultural sociology, providing data on a world center of culture- production during a time of rapid social and economic change. In addition to the scientific gains to be achieved by the research, this award will materially assist a highly promising student in completing research for the Ph.D. dissertation. Thus it contributes to the future scientific manpower of the nation and the thorough training of the next generation of sociologists.