In the arts, brand has often been seen as a ‘dirty word.’ This paper critically analyzes the shaky relationship between artists and an arts council by examining a unique data set of annual reports from the Australia Council for the Arts, over a period of thirty-one years (1982–2013). This longitudinal study charts how and why brand legitimacy in the arts council was lost through the use of institutional, legitimacy and branding theories. With a focus on brand images, text, and media coverage, we demonstrate the souring of relations with artists over three decades. The data reveal three phases of brand development: artist-centric to artistic rebellion to corporatization, at which time the arts council lost artists’ support of the brand. The shift over three phases illustrates changes in types of legitimacy that dominate. The changes are from cognitive and moral legitimacy to pragmatic legitimacy. This change is synonymous with changes in the global art field to McDonaldization. An arts council circulates brands in an artistic and corporate milieu, seeking to achieve legitimacy with actors in both fields. The use of a one-sided branding strategy provokes opposition from artists as it occurs at their expense, creating winners and losers in legitimacy terms.

在艺术领域，品牌经常被视为一个“肮脏的词”。本文通过检查澳大利亚艺术委员会 31 年（1982 年至 2013 年）的年度报告的独特数据集，批判性地分析了艺术家与艺术委员会之间的不稳定关系。这项纵向研究描绘了艺术委员会中的品牌合法性如何以及为何因制度、合法性和品牌理论的使用而丧失。以品牌形象、文字和媒体报道为重点，我们展示了三十多年来与艺术家关系的恶化。数据揭示了品牌发展的三个阶段：以艺术家为中心到艺术反叛到企业化，此时艺术委员会失去了艺术家对品牌的支持。三个阶段的转变说明了主导合法性类型的变化。变化是从认知和道德合法性到语用合法性。这种变化是全球艺术领域向麦当劳化转变的同义词。艺术委员会在艺术和企业环境中传播品牌，寻求在这两个领域的演员中获得合法性。使用片面的品牌战略会引起艺术家的反对，因为它以牺牲艺术家为代价，在合法性方面创造了赢家和输家。