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| Is a Work of Art the Master of Its Meaning? Alise Tīfentāle, Art Critic | |
| "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less." "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all." Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There (1871) In the beginning there was incomprehension. And, it would appear, this is how it will be at the end as well. That is, in the beginning there was the dismay expressed by Līga Marcinkeviča regarding the fact that in the cosmopolitan world of contemporary art the individual, emotional and existential aspects are being misunderstood, ignored and downgraded to "global indifference". At the time Līga (as the curator of the Latvian exhibit at this year's Venice Biennale) voiced a critical view of the international institution of the contemporary art curator: "Graduates of Bard College seek what is individual in art, yet in the end make everything the same." Because art theoreticians first of all look for something familiar and accessible, and this will most likely be something universal and primitive, albeit couched in the quotations of contemporary philosophers. At one point the question became truly existential: Is our - Latvian - artist understood by anyone beyond the borders of our country? Why are Western curators and art critics unable to see in the works of Latvian artists what the artists mean to express through them? Instead of an answer there is the difficult path across four stumbling blocks, and yet more questions. | |
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The First Stumbling Block of Understanding. One of the prevailing opinions is that the definitive interpretation of the meaning of a work of art belongs to the artists themselves. Without knowing the artist's intentions, methods, principles and biography, the work of art cannot be understood. This opinion is quite popular - with the goal of ascertaining the author's intents and methods, exhibition halls host public meettheartist events and press conferences for journalists; art publications print art theoreticians' interviews with the artist, etc. In a way, there is good reason to subscribe to this view - by looking at the work of art and hearing out its creator at the same time, the spectator gains a deeper insight, as the artist's commentary may reveal new dimensions to the work. It gets even better if the author of the work of art is wellknown to the viewer, or is even a friend - in this case the audience can truly see a reflection of the artist in their work and experience the material manifestation of the artist's spiritual life. At the same time, one could also disagree with this opinion - does the artist know what she or he has created? Does the work really express what they had intended to express? Can an artist always clearly verbalize everything they have wished to express in the work of art? If it were so, life would become incredibly boring and any art would soon turn into a gallery of one-dimensional illustrations and manifestos. But it's not like that, thankfully. Visual art is not simply prose, poetry, concept or any other text in visual form. An artist is not Humpty Dumpty, and cannot rule over his "words" (that is, the means of artistic expression) to the extent where his work will mean "just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less." The work that an artist creates takes on a life of its own, it is even, in a way, independent of its creator like a grown-up child, and becomes available to the spectator to perceive, enjoy, meticulously and pedantically analyse or subject to any other method of perceiving art. The contemporary art experience is exciting precisely because it often doesn't define clear rules of the game and doesn't set out the boundaries of the playing field: it challenges the spectator to intellectual effort, or a psychoanalytical free flow of association, or other mental activities. Should a spectator always side with the author and guess their argument? I don't think so at all: a work of art is a manifestation of consciously and unconsciously materialized content, and the spectator has the right to view the work independently by themselves, examining it against the background of their previous experience of art, their values, taste, political bent, and so on. The British art historian Arnold Hauser, founder of the social viewpoint of art history, wrote in 1959: "A work of art is a challenge; we do not explain it, we adjust ourselves to it. In interpreting it we draw upon our own aims and endeavours, inform it with a meaning that has its origin in our own ways of life and thought."1 The Second Stumbling Block of Understanding. Bearing in mind what has just been said, a new question arises: Whom to trust in understanding the work of art, if the artists themselves are not to be trusted? Hierarchically the next link would be a relevant expert or professional - a curator or an art critic. These days the international exhibition curator is a skilful "cultural operator" who gives impetus to processes that would otherwise perhaps remain quasi-stationary - they ensure the creation of ever new and fresh works of art and their "streaming" to a noveltyhungry international audience. At the same time they assume a certain level of guardianship over "their" artworks - a curator gives reasons for the choice of works, points out what he or she considers to be salient and offers an interpretation. Does a spectator have to agree with the curator's explanation of what a work of art means? In a way, yes - assuming that this curator is an intellectual endowed with the sharp eye of a soaring eagle, who is able to survey an immense volume of human creative endeavour and pick out the pearls (or at least the grains), and then from their perspective arrange these pearls in a string, both making each individual pearl more lustrous as well as presenting the complete string as a meaningful message. In a way, also, no - curators represent a particular view of art, and tend, for example, to see feminism, ecology, class struggle and whatnot else in absolutely everything. Perhaps this lies at the foundation of Līga's abovementioned dismay about "global indifference", which suggests picking out and highlighting all that is common, universal (and therefore the most simple) in the string of works of art. Nevertheless, the curator's view, however politically or otherwise engaged, is a good trial run for the spectator: it is one of the ways that art may be viewed, and one of the ways of orientating oneself in the vastness of some biennial. Just like the art theoretician's view published in an art magazine. The work of art itself stays unscathed in any case, it is still there for the viewer's reflection and freedom of opinion.2 The Third Stumbling Block of Understanding. If the artist's own version about the meaning of their work is not to be believed, and the curator's commentary is likewise questionable, all that is left is the spectator, alone, in front of the work of art. By discarding the need to seek an orthodox "truth" in a work of art we arrive at a precarious state of weightlessness - and this is a good thing. We can compare what has been said by the soaring eagle and by Humpty Dumpty, we can confer with friends, and quite tranquilly disagree with everyone and remain with our own opinions. Can an understanding of a work of art which has been formed in such fashion be prone to error, or wrong? Then we must ask - does any given work of contemporary art have a single correct meaning, a correct perception? At the same time as Carroll, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was likewise trying to work out the evolution of meaning - how an idea becomes a visual image, how this visual image is interpreted in our mind and then verbalized - and in 1873 arrived at the conclusion that "the correct perception -which would mean the adequate expression of an object in the subject - is a contradictory impossibility. For between two absolutely different spheres, as between subject and object, there is no causality, no correctness, and no expression; there is, at most, an aesthetic relation: I mean, a suggestive transference, a stammering translation into a completely foreign tongue - for which there is required, in any case, a freely inventive intermediate sphere and mediating force."3 A "correct" perception or understanding is not possible, just like it is not possible to express visual art in words. The "freely inventive" art theoreticians and curators offer their version of understanding, the same as each spectator does, and thus the experience of the work of art becomes an element of intercommunication - versions and impressions are exchanged, intellectual status is claimed (for those in the know to invoke Adorno, Lyotard and Žižek at the right moment) etc. The work of art itself becomes secondary at some point, as the intellectual and mental processes of the spectator move into the foreground along with the communicative function provided by the opportunity and ability to reflect on the particular piece. "What [our] language primarily de-scribes is a picture. What is to be done with the picture, how it is to be used, is still obscure."4 The Fourth Stumbling Block of Understanding. As we give up the search for the "correct" interpretation of a work of art, we may ask: does a work of art even possess a meaning that needs to be interpreted, explained and translated into a verbal expression? Susan Sontag has categorically disclaimed the task of explaining the meaning of a work of art, writing in 1964 that "interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world - in order to set up a shadow world of "meanings"."5 Instead of intellectual analysis and interpretation of the content and meaning of a work of art, Sontag, in the spirit of 1960s idealism, called for a return to feelings: "We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more",6 contrasting the preferable "erotics of art" with the unpreferable "hermeneutics of art". The art critic and abstract art advocate Clive Bell was even more radical in his views, stating in 1914 that "to appreciate a work of art we need bring nothing from life, no knowledge of its ideas and affairs, no familiarity with its emotions... nothing but a sense of form and colour and a knowledge of three-dimensional space." However, the practice of explaining the meaning of a work of art also has its supporters, among others Michael Baldwin, Charles Harrison and Mel Ramsden, who in 1981 proclaimed that "art history has to be explanatory, because artists are producers [..] if art history is not truly explanatory [..] then the status of the artist as a producer will remain masked and his works will continue to generate mere problems of translation and discrimination."7 The way out of all this could be midway between the two extremes: between an uninhibited surrender to emotions and associations, and a rationally logical accountancy of art as a part of the economy. The Great Cliff of Misunderstanding. A work of art will always have some sort of meaning or rationale which can be discussed. However we should distinguish between the direct perception of a work of art, experiencing or viewing it in person, and the rationalisation of this experience which follows, its "stammering translation". Such an experience can be slightly mystical, it can be entertaining, depressing or in any other way emotional, but in any case it will be an individual, subjective spiritual event. It will invariably be subjectively "correct" (even when the viewer experiences something completely different to the artist's intention). The rationalisation stage, in turn, belongs to the realm of mental activity - the mind synthesises and otherwise processes the material that is available to it, and in the end produces "output" in the form of a conclusion. To a great extent this conclusion will be based on everything that has previously been "input" (the previously acquired knowledge and experience of the particular person). To return to the initial existential question of the Latvian artist who is misunderstood by Western theoreticians - a graduate of Bard College graduate, for example, has received the "input" of a certain set of data and information, which presumes the "outgo" of conclusions of a predetermined type (the concepts employed, philosophical and culturespecific idea systems and other elements also prescribe a certain way of viewing a work of art, and this way may not be compatible with the interpretation envisaged by the author of the work of art). Can such a conclusion - a rational evaluation of a work of art - be "correct"? "When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding ‘truth' within the realm of reason."8 That is, we evaluate the quality of such a conclusion, mental evaluation, by the criteria of the "realm of reason" - by how competent this conclusion is, how well substantiated, how clearly and logically formulated, how biased or critical etc. Such a conclusion is, figuratively speaking, hidden "behind a bush": in a self-sufficient field of theory, far away from the work of art and its emotional mental perception and understanding. And there, luckily, it may be independent (meaning that it does not necessarily have to side with the artist). 1 Hauser, A. The Scope and Limitations of a Sociology of Art. From The Philosophy of Art History. London: Routledge, 1959, p.3. 2 A classic example: Tracey Emin's bed may equally persuasively be described as a leftist-feminist gesture, a universally human existential scream, a contemporary installation of found objects, simply crass bare-faced cheek, and so on. 3 Nietzsche, F. On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense. (1873) 4 Wittgenstein, L. Philosophical Investigations [datums?] 5 Sontag, S. Against Interpretation (1964). From Art History and its Methods, ed. E. Fernie. London: Phaidon Press, 1999, p. 218. 6 Ibid., p. 222. 7 Baldwin, M., Harrison C., Ramsden, M. Art History, Art Criticism and Explanation (1981). From Art History and its Methods, ed. E. Fernie. London: Phaidon Press, 1999, p. 275. 8 Nietzsche, F. On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense. (1873) /Translator into English: Līva Ozola/ | |
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