What is meant by the word meaning? How do artworks come to form or suggest meanings? Is meaning 'in' artworks or do they mediate or embody meaning? Can it be said that artists are the ‘authors’ of meaning even when it is the product of luck or serendipity? Is meaning even necessary to art?
Within the context of art, when we talk of meaning, the term is usually used to refer to the implications and significances evoked by objects, images or experiences. Meaning, in this sense, is a process of signification where the references and associations elicited or articulated by artworks form some kind of coherent message (where the ambiguities add up).
A widely held assumption about meaning is that it is somehow contained 'within' the artwork, put there – concealed even - by the artist, ready for explication by an experienced viewer or critic who will draw out the 'hidden' meanings and lay them bare for the rest of us to see and to scrutinise. According to this view, 'weak' artworks and 'non-art' (pictures, snapshots etc.) simply do not contain any meanings because no meanings have been put there by the authorial ingenuity or imagination of an artist. The handy thing about this approach is that it radically simplifies the complexity of authorial intention (not to mention the attribution of “greatness”) whilst at the same time distinguishing art from non-art: if it is not made by an artist then it’s not art and if the artist didn’t intend it then it is not “the” meaning. Straightforward as this view - frequently known as the "Intentional Fallacy" - appears, it quickly flounders as soon as we begin to ask how even the most accidental of snapshots can sometimes be so self evidently laden with meaning. How did the meaning get there? "You put it there" comes the reply - "You read it into the image - it wasn't there beforehand." And how could we expect the answer to be any different? If meaning only ever gets 'into' things by being deliberately 'put' there then this is the only logical explanation.
Perhaps a little Structuralist theory might provide a means to explore these issues in greater depth. Structuralism holds that language can only be understood - is only intelligible - as a system of relationships. Words in themselves are simply sounds or marks upon a page and it is only through their relationships to a wider set of socially negotiated and agreed meanings (definitions) and rules (grammar, syntax etc.) that words are able to be deployed in intelligible communication. In comparison, there are no rules or definitions of the visual, of art, images or appearances to nearly the same degree. There is, nonetheless, a diversity of symbols, metaphors, references, associations, strategies, genres, forms, styles, codes, conventions and traditions, all of which inform both the production and the interpretation of artworks. Without these rich and varied resources there would be no possibility of communication through images.
“The expression on my face ‘ says something’ about who I am (identity) and what I am feeling (emotions) and what group I feel I belong to (attachment), which can be ‘read’ and understood by other people, even if I didn’t intend to communicate anything as formal as ‘a message’, and even if the other person couldn’t give a very logical account of how s/he came to understand what I was ‘saying’.” – Stuart Hall, “Representation”
The meaning of any given artwork is therefore not simply the product of the artist’s intention but is constructed through and within a wider set of relationships and these relationships also enable and inform the interpretation of artworks. In order for artworks to communicate therefore, artists and viewers are reliant upon a variety of pre-existent resources, just as in daily life we all rely upon a multitude of methods, tools and materials that we ourselves have neither invented nor produced.
I don’t mean to suggest here that artists are not the authors of their work. Artists do articulate meanings through their work but, whilst it is important to recognise that these meanings are both enabled by and reliant upon factors outside the immediate control of artists, so too is it important to recognise that artists stumble upon meanings ie: they make discoveries through the process of working and these new discoveries are often far more profound and original than those they deliberately concoct.
In the same way that artists inadvertently make discoveries they also find images and artifacts that seem to speak with an articulacy that no amount of deliberate intention could summon. But since these discoveries have not been intentionally created and are, on occasion, simply the result of accidents, incompetence or serendipity, is it logical that artists should be able to claim authorship for them?
Even though my 19 month old son speaks only a few words, he occasionally blurts out what sound like perfectly formed sentences. Despite the momentary surprise, it’s immediately obvious that he neither recognizes these as meaningful nor does the context in which they emerge suggest that they are deliberate. In order for his communications to have meaning they need to be uttered in the right context and, above all, they need to be repeatable. This aspect of repeatability is also vital in the output of artists. Repeatability is what distinguishes luck from perception. A single astounding snapshot is simply the product of probability, whereas an interrelated selection of astounding snapshots demonstrates an uncommon level of editorial selectivity, awareness and skill. In other words, the more a success is repeated, the more evidence there is of an insightful intelligence (a perception) at work.
After all, if it were the case that art could only be brought about by intentional action then discovery would be an impossibility. We can't know what we are going to discover before we discover it, otherwise it wouldn't be a discovery. We may have a hunch, or even a hypothesis, but until we encounter the actuality we can never be completely certain of the outcome. Why else experiment?
Does an artwork have to mean something in order to qualify as art? The short answer is “No”. Art is not a measure of meaning, which is to say that there is no correlation between meaning and whether something is art or not. However, it is difficult to conceive of any cultural experience that is entirely devoid of meaning. As social beings it would seem that our overriding preoccupation with communication predisposes us to notice the telltale signs of meaning in almost everything we encounter, from the lines of my hand to the configuration of coffee grounds in the bottom of a cup, from the “changes in one's shadow, after one's lover has departed in anger” to the beckoning gesture of a cat’s raised paw. Nonetheless, meaning isn’t all there is to art. All art is essentially experiential in nature and in that sense it embodies experience. Even the most intangible of conceptual art retains a dimension of what it ‘feels’ like to imagine; of what it means to see; of what it means to mean.
