Meaning in Art:
Thoughts on Meaning in the Visual Arts.
Derek Kerslake
©December, 1999.
There is more to art than objects and technique. There is, as the sculptor Naum Gabo said,"content",(MAonA,109).
Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Beuys placed considerable emphasis on meaning in their art. Both artists emphasized the choice of materials was essential to convey meaning and went so far as to say, any material was fair game toward this end. Both artists works were statements in their own right and both Duchamp and Beuys gave explanations in interviews and written texts. Duchamps famous glass, "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors... Even", is intended to be accompanied by a collection of texts and diagrams titled "The Green Box". The "Green Box" is essential for one to understand Duchamp's glass, according to the biographer Calvin Tompkins,(T,3), though to this day much in "The Bride Stripped Bare..." remains an enigma. Joseph Beuys, on the other hand, lectured extensively and did performances as an integral part of his art. Content is central to many other visual artists works as well.
The painter Harold Town voiced a different view. ". . . many explanations by artists . . .are merely retroactive fabrications" (CCA178) according to Town and there is, no doubt, an element of truth to this statement in a number of cases. Henry Moore was a little less blunt but he also believed artists talking about their art is best avoided and said about all an artist is required to do is perhaps give some "clues"(MAonA138).
Beuys and Duchamp on the one hand, Town and Moore on the other hand, are two pairs of artists with opposing views regarding meaning in visual art.
I like to think my work could be self explanatory; This is, of course, unrealistic because often the work I do is a response to subconscious and/or conscious pressure which can take months or years for me to decipher after the work is complete so how could someone not privy to my subconscious see a message in my work? The truth is, all things are possible. A person might well see something in my work which I do not or one might see things in my work which do not represent my feelings at all. I could be misinterpreted completely and this is why, I believe, an artist should look at Town's statement as some what cynical.
It is incumbent upon an artist to at least attempt to understand what is going on in the work. What occurred to translate that which began in the artist's mind or heart into physical substance? Pondering meanings in art can be edifying if not definitive for the arist and the viewer.
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