The artist is frequently uncertain when they begin to create a work, how the completed work will look or sound. However, the corporate business model, which is premised on a rational and instrumental worldview, suggests that in a market environment, art should be evaluated objectively, based on clearly stated, and measurable, objectives. This research explores the difficulties that art, and the evaluation of aesthetics, has in fitting into a corporatist world view of evaluation. First, the research examines the historical materialisation of the corporate model, and how it has infiltrated nonprofit arts. Second, it investigates the likely reasons as to why instrumental rationality and managerialism have been embraced so enthusiastically by bureaucrats, arts marketers, and funders. And third, the research will seek to develop a research approach by which artists, managers, funders, and audiences can evaluate art within a framework that is sympathetic to the art, the audience, and the artist.