Intention. Interpretation. Impact.
Who decides what art means?
Welcome to SELF HELP, a blog about art and life. Learn more on my “about” page and, if you haven’t already, SPEAK SLOWLY AND CLEARLY TO that subscribe button to receive email updates:
You start a conversation, you can't even finish it
You're talking a lot, but you're not saying anything
When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed
Say something once, why say it again?
Talking Heads, “Psycho Killer”
There’s a part in a Talking Heads song when David Byrne yell-sings, “You’re talking a lot, but you’re not saying anything!” I tasted this particular flavor of irritation while watching a YouTube video in which a prospective MFA student described her portfolio, which was then critiqued by two art instructors.
Much of the work in the portfolio was hauntingly beautiful. Both delicate and grotesque, its fragile materials (paper, fabric, mirrors) were manipulated in ways that hastened their degradation. To me, the work suggested self-immolation, the ravages of time.
To the artist, however, the work was about the commodification of women’s bodies — and nothing else. When the critics expressed what the work brought to mind to them the artist rebuffed them, repeatedly bringing the conversation back to her theme.
It bugged me (and, it seemed, the critics) that the artist insisted on assigning the work a narrow meaning, pigeonholing it into a theme that its formal qualities didn’t suggest. I’d have argued that the work transcended the meaning ascribed to it, provoking a rich array of associations.
But I got the impression that the artist would not have wanted to hear that.
Meaning: DIY
The discrepancy between intention and impact brings to mind an age-old question: Who determines what art means? The artist, who deliberately set out to communicate a specific idea? Or the viewers, who took away something completely different?
In the plot-twist of the century that absolutely no one saw coming, nobody is “correct.” As the old truism goes, “art is in the eye of the beholder.” No single person can — or should — have a monopoly on art’s meaning. Not even its creator.
Still, I can empathize with the artist’s reaction to the critics.
It’s not great to hear that the thing you thought you were doing isn’t what you did after all — at least in the eyes of others. It’s discomfiting to realize that, try as you might to “control the narrative,” how your creations impact people is ultimately out of your hands.
But if we can find it in ourselves to be receptive to feedback, we might notice that even when viewers don’t respond to our work by mirroring the ideas we set out to express, they recognize we’ve expressed something. Taking in their honest interpretations can help us understand what that something is, exposing the assumptions and associations beneath what we do. And it can open new paths of discovery that we wouldn’t have considered otherwise.
If nothing else, feedback can tell us what not to do next time if we’re still intent on representing our original idea.
Rothko to critics: Please hold
In an act of unanticipated relevance, I chased the portfolio critique video with one about Mark Rothko’s famous color field paintings (you know the ones: giant canvases, large swaths of color, name-dropped by those who want to talk about how stupid or how incredible modern art is).
The narrator talks about how Rothko chose not to explain his practice at all. He refused to contextualize his paintings with placards and decried those who “critically dissected” his art, believing this amounted to an “obstacle” to experiencing the work. At the same time, “He believed without any knowledge or outside help, those who viewed his paintings could have intense emotional reactions.”
To me, criticizing the critics for criticizing seems a little … counterintuitive for someone seeking to embrace the subjectivity of experience. In telling people how not to talk about his art, wasn’t Rothko putting his thumb on the scale too? Implying that only particular styles of engagement are acceptable?
Maybe. I think I catch his underlying drift though.
Most art is inherently alive with ambiguity. If we overexplain it, we risk reducing it to a collection of calculated moves, a trite statement about society. And if art is worth experiencing, such statements don’t do it justice.
“Meaning,” like art, is an elusive and personal thing. It emerges from form and function and relates to association and analysis, but it doesn’t stop there. It manifests as a feeling. It crops up in unexpected places. It can’t be pinned down without slipping away.
Sometimes, to get it, you just have to be there.
***NEW THING ALERT*** To encourage comments, I’m going to start asking a discussion question at the end of each blog post. (Of course, feel free to comment on anything else instead/too.)
Today’s question:
Mark Rothko paintings: brilliant, overrated, or some other third thing? Discuss.
I don't have strong feelings about Rothko one way or the other...though I had a pack of his paintings as greeting cards. I thought they were a way to signal "good taste" for sending a handwritten note after a job interview.
That said, staring at a Rothko painting rescue my love of art during a cynical phase:
"I had an epiphany when a professor pointed out "Yes, but don't you see that the act of viewing art is creative in itself?" After pondering the comment for a few weeks, I went to art museum and saw a Rotko on the wall. While I stood there, I focused on the border between white and brown and saw an stormy arctic snow scene complete with a igloo and campfire.
In that moment I smiled. I knew that such simplistic representational interpretation of this work would have been repugnant to Mr. Rothko and any other respectable student of art, but fuckall the academy, I had become a participant in the painting as a viewer."
https://www.grizzlypear.com/a-crisis-averted/
Mark Rothko has never done much for me, but my husband has apparently stood in front of his paintings and cried (this was before I knew him). I believe of course in the power of art to move people that way. I also believe that you're right, you can't control how people interpret or feel about your art, and you shouldn't want to because it's pointless. But you're never going to stop people from wanting to control things.
On a different note, I've been thinking about adding prompts for discussion too! The lack of response is so frustrating, I gotta say...