What’s the true nature of an art work?
Is it what the artist anoints it to be or what the critic perceives it to be? Could an art work
exist with multiple meanings and interpretations and still be taken
seriously?
It is one of the fundamental questions
asked by many artists and the question stems from the fear that his/her work of
art could always be misinterpreted by critics and viewers alike. This authorial
anxiety is legitimate as much as the interpretational freedom that the critics
and viewers exercise. There could be a possibility of a work of art being
over-read or under-read. When meanings are attributed to a work of art through
multi-layered interpretative acts, the work is reduced to a mere trope that has
nothing to do with the authorial intentions. So is the case when a work is
under-read through negative deductions, stripping the work off of its strength
to generate multiple meanings.
A work of art does not stand as a
monolith. ‘This is not a Pipe,’ wrote Rene Magritte on his painting that
depicted a smoking pipe. He was suggesting that a pipe is not a pipe where the
word pipe does not stand in for the pipe in the picture. In structuralism, it
is said that a sign need not necessarily be the signified. Through the act of
signification the quality and intentional meaning of a sign could change. So
the authorial intention may not be taken in the same seriousness and verve in a
location/context where the work of art as a sign or a text does not signify the
same. This heralds the death of the author, metaphorically at least and new ‘authors’
come to be through the creation of multiple texts/signs out of the given
according to the renewed contexts.
(How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare by Joseph Beuys)
Joseph Beuys, the German conceptual artist
lamented, how he could explain pictures to a dead hare. On the one level he was
talking about the impossibility of interpretation in the case of a work of art
for the listener could be ‘dead’ to its meaning. On the other hand Beuys’ act
also could emphasis the fact the dead animal’s symbolic meaning was also dead
to the stories or interpretations that he was making about the imagined work in
his possession. We could deduce that here two narrative texts are brought into
an impossible and improbable confrontation where both are dead to each other
rendering the act of signification or reading null and void. In Beuys’ shamanic
acts he freezes the meaning to its act alone and also connects back to the symbolic
meanings developed around an object or act through the various layers of
historic time.
We could pit Joseph Beuys against the
Rene Magritte as they stick to two different methods of reading and
understanding a work of art. Beuys makes his performances unique and no other meaning
could be attributed than the autobiographical references and shamanic
mysteries. In the case of Magritte each work of art in fact challenges the acts
of making a singular meaning and opens up a possibility for reading and
understanding it in varied ways. True that the autobiographical references play
a major role in any artists’ works but as the works become texts and start
their independent journeys through various cultural contexts similar and
dissimilar to the original one it changes its complexion and could mean
something entirely different, which however does not overthrow the authorial
intentions altogether. They stand as one of the meanings, but not necessarily
as the primary one.
(Painting by Rene Magritte)
For example take the seminal work of
art created by Damien Hirst, something unprecedented in the history of modern
art. Perhaps, Da Vinci had attempted at dissecting various animals including
the human beings; his approach was purely scientific and no religious, ethical
or symbolic meaning was attributed to it. The chances of symbolic attributions
are considerably reduced when something done in a context even if it is
artistically inclined but denied the chance of it being a work of art. In Da
Vinci’s drawings of dissection do not enter into the symbolic realm. Hence, one
could say that those drawings carry only authorial intentions, blocking almost
all the chances of it becoming a text liable to be opened for the generation of
multiple sub-texts.
Damien Hirst’s work is titled ‘The
Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’. A tiger shark
was fished from the seas and was split into two to have it in the vitrines
filled with formaldehyde for preservation. Other than the explanatory title no
clue was given to raise it to the symbolic realm. One could contemplate deeply
on life and death alike in the presence of this work of art. Too many readings
came but none went far away from what I have just said because the authorial
intention was such that it did not mean anything than a dissected shark in
formaldehyde solution. The authorial intention perhaps was to shock the viewer
and give a chance to think about life and death. There were many discourses
regarding this work but all were extraneous to the fundamental meaning of the
work of art.
(Dissection experiments by Da Vinci)
There are works that allow
interpretations and there are works that block interpretations, that means
there could be works as open texts and closed texts. Open texts have the
tendency to move beyond the familiar cultural locations and assume new meanings
whereas closed texts remain in one place with one meaning therefore gaining
some kind of universal currency without interpretative symbolism. Beuys
underlined the idea of textual collisions that dispel each other and in Hirst
we see a one-sided bombardment of visual effect that could generate not
meanings but extraneous dialogues.
(the Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living by Damien Hirst)
Authorial intentions cannot travel as
fast the images especially in the contemporary times when transference of data
and images is unimaginably fast. Images become open texts, almost ‘culture-less’
or devoid of a particular culture therefore liable to be interpreted according
to the given contexts. Till the modern times, religion was the grammar that
held the visual creations within the universal interpretative field. Modern
times shook off the shackles of religion and the grammar was fragmented.
Globalization and the proliferation of a homogenous market have become a new
religion providing a universal grammar to the urban visual art creations so
that interpreting the works has more or less become closer to the authorial
intentions. It is always good to have authorial intention in the background so
that the critic wouldn’t stray too far to make the work look entirely different
from something imagined by the artist. At the same time it is not necessary
that the authorial intention should rule the reading of a work of art,
preventing it from being effective in multiple contexts in varied ways.
-JohnyML
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