Slides for the lecture introducing some of the concepts of interpreting art.

1. Interpretation
Monism or Pluralism

2. Nothing.
What’s it
I think it’s
all about?
upside down.
Can art be meaningless?

3. A Fable What’s it
Imagine Geo, a noted all about?
philosopher who dabbles in art,
unveiling his latest artwork to an
appreciating crowd.
The work is abstract and
prompts the usual remarks about
how dramatic the colors are, it's
smart sense of space, it's playful
use of form and tone. There is,
however, one hard-headed guest
does not get it, and asks “What is
it about?”

4. A Fable
“It’s not about anything.” replies Nothing.
Geo.
This creates an awkward silence,
into which Art, another noted
philosopher says “You mean it is
about nothing.”
“No.” replies Geo, “It’s is not about
nothing, nor about nothingness, it is
just not about anything.”
“Do you mean,” ventures Art, “That
it is not about anything in
particular, but can be about an
indefinite number of things?”

5. A Fable
Really
“No.” replies Geo, “I mean that this
painting is not about anything.”
Not content, Art presses on “Do you
mean that this painting is about not
being about anything?”
Geo shakes his head, the very
picture of an artist who is
misunderstood, and answers yet
again, “No. I simply mean that this
painting is not about anything.”

6. A Fable I think it’s
Art is puzzled and says “It seems upside down.
impossible that something can both
be an artwork and yet not be about
anything.”
Which Geo contests by replying
“Well, it is art and it isn’t about
anything.”
At which point, a the hard-headed
guest points out that he thinks Geo
has made a mistake and hung the
painting upside down, which Geo
agrees to, promptly inverts the
piece, and they move to the dining
room for dinner.

7. Ron Mueck: Two Women

8. Language
Speaker Hearer
Ron Mueck: Two Women

9. Art
Artist Audience
Ron Mueck: Two Women

10. Art
Artist Audience
Language
Speaker Hearer
Language roles are frequently
transitive, art roles less so.

11. Interpretation
Can questions of interpretation ever be
given correct answers?Need there always
be a multiplicity of equally good answers?
Must we always be in a state of uncertainty
about these answers?

12. Tansey, Innocent Eye Test

13. Critical Monism or
Pluralism
Retrieval is the project of understanding a work as the
product, for the most part, of design by its historical
creator.This involves attempting to understand the writer's
intentions and the vicissitudes they undergo. It involves as
well understanding back-ground conditions such as "aesthetic
norms, innovations in the medium, rules of decorum,
ideological or scientific world views, ... systems of symbolism,
the state of the tradition" current when the artist made the
work. It is plausible that retrievals (this project as a whole
or one of its proper parts),if they are possible at all, make
factual claims. If so, such interpretations are true or false
and are to be assessed as such. This is not to say they are the
only interpretations that can be assessed for truth
Robert Stecker

14. Camels, George Steinmetz

15. Cindy Sherman

16. Francesca Woodman, Photo by Ariana McNulty

17. Ariana McNulty

18. Relativism due to
Underdetermination
His first premise is that external evidence (facts external to
the work) are irrelevant to determining the truth of
interpretations. Matthews's second premise is that critics
typically know all the relevant internal evidence in support-
of their interpretations. Matthews's final premise is that it is
a conceptual truth that interpretations are not known to be
true at the time they are proposed. It follows that, since
interpreters of literary works know all the relevant evidence
in favor of their interpretations,but this is insufficient to
give them knowledge that their interpretations are true, the
evidence for these interpretations underdetermines their
truth.
Robert Matthews

19. Relativism due to
Underdetermination
1.external evidence (facts external to the work) are
irrelevant to determining the truth of interpretations.
2.critics typically know all the relevant internal evidence in
support-of their interpretations.
3.it is a conceptual truth that interpretations are not known
to be true at the time they are proposed.
If 2 and 3 are true then the evidence for these interpretations
underdetermines their truth.

20. Jeff Koons from Art21

21. First Thought Best Thought
According to Stecker, one way of interpreting
an artwork (historical explanations) is to
figure out what the actual maker of the thing
was trying to do, and in fact did, in making it.
the other way (the desire for understanding)
is to seek an understanding of a work: a way
of taking a work that makes sense of it as
whole. Some interpretations are incorrect—
untrue— others can be unacceptable even if
it only makes true statements because it
doesn't explain what puzzles us about a work.
Consider Koons interpretations of his own
artworks given Stecker’s concepts.