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April 19, 2006
Once in a while I feel justified breaking from my self-imposed 50-word challenge. Sometimes I feel like offering a big idea to mull over. Today, in doing both, I offer some excerpts from “Trust your own reactions, don't seek enlightenment” by Grayson Perry, an article appearing in today’s UK Times.
… We all have a part of ourselves that cries out for certainty and meaning. If we encounter a contemporary artwork one of the first things we ask is: “What does it mean?” We can be uncomfortable with not knowing, not being sure, not having the safe ground of the authorised, correct interpretation. When encountering an artwork we seek the explanatory panel. …
Knowing what they think it’s all about may increase our enjoyment of the artwork but perhaps that can also lead to us devaluing our own personal uninformed response. … We are all equally well qualified to say yuk or wow. …
Alan Bennett thought there should be a big notice up at the entrance to the National Gallery that says “You don’t have to like everything”. We are sometimes coy about expressing our tastes for fear of appearing ignorant. … [Incidentally, I used to say something similar to my mother when viewing abstract art: "It doesn't matter what it is; how does it make you feel?"]
Susan Sontag said: “Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual on art.” Perhaps she means that heady types are mystified and a bit jealous of artists’ ease with creativity and free expression so they theorise the fun out of art. Excellence at book-learning is only part of being truly bright. …
Often it seems as if dubious theories get trowelled on to an artwork to shore up some intellectual’s personal emotional response. …
Such is the status that meaning can have over feeling that I bow to the pressure and engage what Steven Pinker calls the “Baloney Generator”. This is our rational self that is so uncomfortable with the potential ambiguity of an emotional motivation that it will try to pin things down with desperately formulated rationales. The cleverer we are the better we are at making up more convincing meanings and reasons. …
As humans, we have a constant discussion going on in our brains. On our right sides we have instinct, emotion, intuition; on the left, intellect, language, reason. As an artist, I feel that it is from this dialogue that inspiration comes. …
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6 comments:
I enjoyed reading the article in its entirety. I find it ironic that we've begun discussing it.
Personally, I am energized and charmed by people who know things, who illuminate life with context. But in work (as in life) I ultimately have to trust my simple gut. "Does it matter what it means?" Yes. And it matters how it feels.
What would Allan Bloom say?
The title of the piece alone (which one would hope is some kind of wink), "Trust your own reactions, don't seek enlightenment" sounds like a roadmap for mediocrity. Also note the non-threatening and bland "don't worry be happy" undertones. Hopefully the credo will remain academic and not tried out in objective fields like bridge construction, aviation or medicine.
Does it matter what it means? It definitely matters. As does intention and vision. If an artist can't tell you what they are trying to achieve or what something means, that's a pretty good warning sign.
Sure, some good stuff will be turned out by the age-old noble savage, impetuous romantic artistic genius model. In the religious world this is known as speaking in tongues.
But in the arts as in any field, real achievement comes from years of back-breaking work, single-minded commitment and a long period of apprenticeship. No one just sits down and writes a symphony.
Not to say there won't be mystery in art. But a good mystery takes work.
I don't think the article is embracing mediocrity. Or saying that art isn't work.
It's saying that we can't rationlize, dissect, understand every darn thing that happens to us, within us. And that's okay. It doesn't mean that we therefore shouldn't appreciate other points of view. A lot of times there is more in an art piece than even the artist is aware of.
The piece is about the "should" struggle. People go gaga about the Mona Lisa. I have read about why it is great but in the end I'm kinda like...that's nice....she's no big deal to me. But part of me thinks I MUST be missing something b/c the experts are declaiming about it....I should find this beautiful....but...um, no.
But art is not exactly objective.
Anyway, just a ramble response to anonymous.
theresa
I think an interesting part of this discussion is our fundamental need to "name" everything.
And the whole left-brain/right-brain dialogue that goes on in response to art. Does that happen in response to science or some logical argument? Not so much, I imagine. How sacred, then, that art is what stimulates both.
Burt Lahr (known most famously as the Cowardly Lion in "The Wizard of Oz") performed in "Waiting for Godot" to thunderous acclaim. Truly a brilliant performance.
Lahr stated that he had absolutely no idea what it was about.
On the other hand, inmates at San Quentin were certain they understood the play.
There is some rare footage of Lahr's performance, and the San Quentin production was filmed in its entirety.
Take a look and see whether understanding what it meant made a difference...
Even if something is "meaningless," then that's what matters -- that it's meaningless. Or that it's the abstract experience -- then that's what matters. In other words, something always matters, whether it's the intellectual idea or the emotional impression.
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