Who decides what art means?
The futility of "controlling the narrative"
Housekeeping
Looking forward (and backward): I’m currently working on a piece about the Minimalism movement and its shortcomings, but I’m not quite satisfied with it. I’d rather take the time to more fully articulate my ideas than post it in its current state, so today I’m resharing a post from 2023, lightly edited for clarity. At that time, only a fraction of you were subscribers, so it’s likely new to you!
Send me your art! I want to see your accidental, iterative, and experimental art — and hear the story behind it. I’ve received some great submissions and would like to share more in a coming “virtual art show” post. Submission deadline is August 10.
Now, onto the main event …
Who decides what art means?
There’s a moment 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 necessarily 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 uncomfortable 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: Do less
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 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 itself, 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.
Thank you for reading Art Life Balance.
If you have thoughts about this post, I’d love to know. Sound off in the comments!
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This makes me think both of Susan Sontag's "Against Interpretation" and Lynda Barry's "What It Is". Strange bedfellows maybe, but both essentially (in part) about ALIVENESS in art and how you can apply your intellect to it, sure, but mostly you should just be experiencing it. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that it *is* an experience, and you're missing out if all you do is try to interpret it with your stupid brain.
Eventually that MFA student will hopefully understand that she can't control how people experience her art no matter how hard she tries.
One of the best pieces of advice I received during my solo exhibition earlier this year was, when answering "what does that painting mean?" Simply reply "what do you think?" It immediately took the pressure off me to have a resolved response, but also meant I could see my work from a fresh perspective, without the bias I'd put on it. I learnt so much from hearing people's responses. I've since come to believe that as soon as art leaves the studio, it doesn't belong to the artist anymore. It's like a mother relinquishing control over their child when they become an adult - the bird flies the nest - we still love our creation and have ideas of what it means, but out in the world it takes on new meaning, and that's a beautiful thing.