Art & Intent

[coyotesuspect]

I interviewed today for a position on the editorial staff of the campus creative writing magazine. It was a group interview, and, as part of it, we were asked to look at two pieces and decide whether or not we would include them in the magazine. One was a poem, the other a photograph.

The poem just wasn't very good. The photograph, however, was interesting; it was of a pile of trash in a Chinese street  with people casually walking by. The title was "Public Health." It had bright, visually arresting colors, an interesting and thought provoking subject matter, and a great title. But the composition was jumbled and discordant, the cropping done poorly. It was, as one of the other candidates for the position put it, "like a point and shoot picture." If it had been cropped better, or taken at a better angle, it could have been a very nice piece.

One of the interviewers brought up the point that maybe the photographer had intended it to look that way. Maybe the composition was supposed to look like a point and shoot in order to say something about the chaoticness of a rapidly industrializing China, about the casualness with which the people in the photograph treated the pile of garbage.

Unfortunately, the interviewer brought this point up at the end of the interview, so we really didn't get the chance to discuss it in any depth. But it's an issue I'm definitely interested in, and one of I've actually been thinking about for the past couple weeks: how much weight should artistic or authorial intent have when deciding the worth of a piece? I'm not convinced intent should play all that important a part.

At the end of the day, whether "Public Health" was actually a point and shoot, or just taken to look as a point and shoot, it's still the same photograph. And unless the magazine plans to run a paragraph next to the photo with the photographer explaining why he or she chose to compose it in such a way, no one is going to know if the photo actually carries behind it that level of social commentary.  But that's beside the point, a photo shouldn't have to have an added paragraph of text to explain why and why and why. A piece of art- whether it's a painting or a photograph or a sculpture or a written piece-  must fundamentally stand on its own.

I discuss this issue often with familiardevil when it comes to fanmixes. There is a certain trend in making fanmixes to include anywhere between a sentence and entire paragraphs to explain why every song was chosen, and sometimes also to explain the symbolism behind the art of the mix. I understand the impulse behind this. I put a lot of thought into making mixes. Every song is there for a reason. The order of the songs is important. I try to achieve a unified sound. I pick certain colors and add certain details to the art to try to arrive at a specific effect or meaning. I know familiardevil  puts even more thought into her mixes.

As someone who creates things, I understand what a fraught process creation it is. We have these ideas in our heads, these beautiful images or stories or songs. And then we're tasked with getting that idea and translating it into the concrete, the understandable, the shareable. I don't think anyone succeeds to the degree with which they would like to. So of course we want to defend or explaon our pieces as best we can. Because we don't want them to reflect badly on us, but, more importantly, because we feel that the piece isn't getting a fair shake otherwise.

But I do not think we, as artists, as writers, as creators, should so vigorously defend and explain our creations. There's certainly some truth to the idea that art is often sadly misunderstood. I encounter this problem with poetry all the time, but I think the issue is that most people don't understand how to understand or interpret these pieces. But the "how" is not a question that should be answered by just having the artist or poet or whatever come and tell you everything about the piece. The "how" is a question that should be answered by giving people the skills to analyze the piece. Art shouldn't- art mustn't!- be something that is merely explained to people. It should be engaging; it should be a relationship. If art is merely explanation, and not interpretation, then art is dead.

Going deeper into the role of artistic intent, the interviewer brought up a piece hanging inside the Museum of Modern Art in Chicago. It is a large canvas, painted all white, and titled "1000 Days". Its title refers to how many days the artist  spent looking at the canvas and thinking about what to do with it, thinking about the potential behind it. I could just as easily submit a blank piece of lined notebook paper or a screenshot of an empty Microsoft Word document and call it art then. This is a piece of art that is only art when considered within the context of artistic intent. There was certainly no skill put into it.

To use a slightly different example, while at the Art Institute a couple weeks ago, I ran into a piece that was, quite literally, a large, somewhat misshapen circle drawn inside a gray square. I looked at the title to see if it would shed any light on this absolutely mystifying piece. The title was: "Distorted Circle inside Gray Square". And this is a piece that is hanging inside one of the most prestigious art museums in the United States.  I can't help but wonder how it was pitched to the museum; is its meaning found in its meaninglessness? Is it only art because it has such institutional weight behind it? Again, then, it becomes art only in context. In this case, that context is the art museum itself, i.e., because it is hanging in this very prestigious art museum, ergo it is art! This seems to me absurd. For the artist to call the piece art is audacious, and I am not sure we should reward an artist for sheer audacity.

Obviously this is a topic fraught with history. Much of the art we view today as being among the greats was treated in its own time with the same skepticism that I greet a circle inside a gray square. Who am I to say what is and isn't art? I'm not even trained in art in any meaningful sense! Yet, beginning in the late 1800s and early 1900s, with the advent of the "modern," there is definitely a tendency to putting the onus of a piece's worth upon the reaction a viewer has to it. Marcel Duchamp, of whom I'm not a fan, but whose philosophy and ideas had an important role upon mine in mid-adolescence, said, "The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act."

Wassily Kandinsky, of whom I am very much a fan, similarly stated about his piece "Improvisation No. 30 (Cannons)" that "the true contents are what the spectator experiences while under the effect of the forms and color combinations of the picture."

To a certain extent, I agree with these statements. However, just as I am loath to pin so much of a piece's worth on the artist's intent, I am equally loath to pin so much of its worth on how the audience reacts to it. I am not sure if Kandinsky's statement is translated (it very likely is), but the word "spectator" is of huge importance. Because that is what the viewer is! Merely a spectator! She does not act! She puts nothing at stake! Just as art that is too explained is dead, art that is without intent is meaningless. It is lazy.

There is, I think, two diverging trends in modern art. The one places a great amount of importance upon intent, and the other places all the import upon the audience's reaction. Thus, we end up with pieces like "1000 Days" in which the artistic intent becomes that the audience should project their own ideas onto a piece. Everything is potential; nothing is achieved.

Ultimately, the question of what makes an art have worth comes down to the question of what is the purpose of art. Should art be didactic? Inspiring? Thought provoking? Beautiful? Cathartic? To whom should art be these things? Should it speak to a specific audience, or should it aim for something more universal? Should it be technically good? Should it break boundaries or should it perfect the old rules? Should it be all of these things? None of these things? Which is more important: how the artist feels about the piece, or how the world reacts to the piece? Is art just there?

Another candidate at the interview noted that the term "good" is subjective, that a piece may be art to someone else even if it isn't to me. This is obviously true. Yet, I disagree with a definition of art that boils down to "anything which has ever been made by humans that at least one person gets enjoyment from". Or, rather, maybe that's all art, but it's certainly not all good art. Another candidate for the position said that, yes, maybe it's all art, but the best is what is most pleasing to the majority. This isn't satisfactory either. If good art is just something that is aesthetically pleasing to the most people, than Thomas Kinkade is the greatest artist of our time.

I think art should, at a minimum, have some amount of effort put behind it. I think good art- and this all applies to good writing as well- should clearly relate something, an experience or a feeling or an idea or a human life- anything, really, as long as something is related. I think art is a fragile concept, that exists somewhere between the artist's mind and the viewer's reaction to it. I think art should be technically proficient, and, if it is going to break the rules, should know what rules it is breaking and have a reason for it. Even if the artist doesn't get the chance to explain that reason. I don't think art has to be enjoyable, but I think it should inspire more than just confusion. And great art should be even more than all that. Great art should original, either in subject or execution, but preferably both. Great art should be more than just technically good; it should be virtuosic. Great art must say something that is specific, but it must speak in a way that is universal.

Art must speak. It must speak on its own, and it must speak with clarity. Art is an action and an expression and interpretation and a relationship. Otherwise, art becomes nothing more than something vaguely pleasant to be hung on the wall and just casually passed by.