脈絡藝術是二十世紀末在西方藝術界興起的新類型的藝術實踐，然而脈絡藝術的定義與範疇仍舊難以清楚界定，也與諸如對話性美學、關係美學、社群藝術等概念互有交集。本文嘗試以藝術社會學的視角，針對藝術的脈絡性與脈絡性的藝術進行思辯，在第一部分當中首先提出藝術研究長期存在的內部性與外部性研究取徑，例如藝術評論系統的形式主義與脈絡主義分野，以及藝術社會學對於作品外部性因素的強調，是如何對照於傳統藝術史學及美學重視藝術品內部形式風格的研究旨趣。文章的第二部分將區別「脈絡」在藝術研究裡的不同意涵層次，以避免脈絡一詞被過度濫用而致語焉不詳，筆者區分了「藝術生成的社會脈絡」、「創作者本身的美學脈絡」，以及「脈絡藝術」三個不同的概念，並且比較三者之間的差異性與關連性。第三部分裡，本文選擇了1990年代初期英國倫敦東區兩件幾乎在同時同地進行的創作進行個案比較研究，分別是懷瑞（Rachel Whiteread, 1963-）的《房子》與李森（Loraine Leeson,1951-）的《當西方遇見東方》，以闡明前衛藝術和對話性創作不同層次的脈絡意涵。

＂Art in the Social Context＂ is a new genre artistic practice emerging in the late 20 century in the Western art worlds. However, it's still difficult to define clearly its aesthetic meanings and categorical boundary, or clearly distinguish context art form other concepts such as relational aesthetics, new genre public art, or community art, etc. This article represents an initial attempt to take the sociological perspective in order to make distinction among different levels of context involved in the artworks. Three levels are proposed when analyze the question of context of art: social context of art, aesthetic context of creation, and ＂Art in Social Context＂ as a category of art form. Two British cases are selected to compare the different contextual meanings between avant-garde artwork and dialogical creation: Rachel Whiteread's ＂House＂ and Loraine Leeson's ＂West Meets East＂. The former artiste takes a relative passive and abstract attitude toward the relevant social context of artwork, and the latter takes a relative active attitude to construct the social context by creating another new social-aesthetic context within which the artistes and other social agents collaborate to reflect on their urgent social issues with a desire to change the existed situation via artistic project and social cooperation. Creating a new context by collective work to make radical changes or ideological revolutions is the most particular property of context art itself.