This work aims to investigate some aspects of the art dealer profession, according to Bourdieu’s field perspective (2010), also relying on some suggestions coming from interactionist research (Becker 2004). The arguments developed are part of a study on gallery owners carried out in the city of Milan, the Italian capital of contemporary art. It is a qualitative research based on in-depth interviews to art gallery owners and participant observations. The analysis examines the practical logics (Bourdieu 1998) underlying the everyday work of these art intermediaries. The field of art dealers is a case of symbolic goods economy, characterized by the coexistence of artistic and economic values (Bourdieu 2005). This ambivalence takes shape in the definition of gallerist itself, in opposition to the idea of merchant of art, thus representing a division among art dealers, based on practices, discourses and structures. The claim to the label of ‘gallerist’ is a discursive euphemism inside conflicts of nomination (Bourdieu 2001). In this way, I interpret some different stances in this artistic microcosm. I propose a classification of art dealers’ profiles to reflect some of their hierarchies and distinctive features. The analysis, carried out through the heuristic lens of the cultural production field, permits to define this working microcosm as an occupation between humility and pride (Hughes 2010). In conclusion, the analysis reveals some struggles of classification in the field of art galleries.

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