Intent

Noun (Purpose): A design, goal, or plan to act (e.g., the intent of the law).
Adjective (Focused): Being deeply fixed, eager, or closely paying attention to something (e.g., intent on work).

I recently had a conversation (OK, text thread) with my college bestie about whether Art can rely on wall copy near the work and be successful. The context was an artist interview wherein the artist noted the necessity of a bit of text for the work to be successful, or at least, fully appreciated and understood by viewers.

I have some mixed feelings about this topic myself. As a creative- and an aspiring critic- I assume what it presented is intended. Unprimed, raw canvas edges- intended (painting is an object, frame is the responsibility of the collector). Title that is obscure and highly personal- intended (and vice versa if it’s super on-the-nose). Painting application reveals the stretcher bars behind the canvas- intended (looking at you, Julian Schnabel).

What about wall text that reveals something about the context, content or personal background of the artist that gives the work weight that would not exist in its absence- clearly intended, yes? I don’t think I’m stretching at all though to say that artist statements can be problematic when they force content onto Art work that doesn’t show up in the work. There can be a mis-match between the design and the goal, which isn’t a problem with the definition (of intent) and in fairness, is, largely, a mis-match between the goal of the Art industrial complex to elevate serious work and the design of the same’s structure to… uh oh, conflate content and intent*.

These questions got stirred up again after a visit to the Blowing Rock Art and History Museum, where I took in Field Studies: Ways of Knowing Place in Southern Appalachia, a really fantastic exhibit of artists focused on this region at an institution from which I hope we will see more of this level of quality. The exhibit is full of intellectually rigorous and technically intriguing work (I made a post on IG of the ones that popped for me). And… a lot of the work was clearly made better with wall text. Let me be more specific. There were several Art works I wouldn’t have appreciated without the wall copy, and I do not think it decreased their effectiveness as visual Art. John Ryan Brubaker made the image on the left through a direct intervention between light sensitive paper and the coal-polluted river that is its subject. Joshua White (middle) uses tin type not as a gimmick but to reflect the lifestyle choices of small-scale, traditionalist farmers in Watauga County. The copy not only enriched the work for me, it revealed aspects that would largely be un-knowable absent the copy (specific example of wall copy below the images accompanies the work on the right from Mark Nystrom).

Oddly, the motivation for writing this essay landed via a different type of, if not direct experience, relationship to some work. I recently re-read Jennifer Samet’s Beer with a Painter Clare Grill edition (after reading a more recent BWAP- a Hyperallergic feature- that did not catch my imagination, despite really loving that artist’s oeuvre). I remember being enthralled with Grill’s work the first time I encountered it. I know it’s an old saw but, Grill is definitely, in the most spiritual sense, a painter’s painter. Samet noted in the interview that John Yau had written the work is “untranslatable” (and BTW, “yes” there is other content about Grill on this blog).

One quote from Grill that stood out, right at the end of the interview, is an embodiment of intent:

“I have to give up control in order to have a real conversation with the painting. I have to be very open to it, which requires a lot of attention and humility.“

I think that both meanings of intent are relevant to the conversation I’m engaging. Here, Grill’s intent (n.) is pointing at the adjective- she is “closely paying attention.” The interview also makes clear that her intent (n.) is a strong preference for work that doesn’t rely on words, at any stage- during creation and I’d wager in their viewing also. So I think we can be confident that Grill does not think viewers need to read interviews with her for the work to succeed.

I’m not sure we should fall in the trap of expecting all Art work to use the same strategies to engage us though. Obviously an artist’s intent matters, and we can hold them accountable for their execution (through attention and also written critique). I think if they are intent (adj.) in that execution, their intent (n.)can be supported in written form without it (the writing) feeling that it drags the work along like a dinghy (good work can do the reverse though).

To take this even further- I think an intent viewer is also crucial to “successful” work. What we take or gather from a work is our responsibility. The artist can’t control for what we may know, even assuming only the art-literate ever set foot in a gallery (ergo, wall text). And, one can be content to ignore the same.

BTW, I edited and re-published a prior essay on the topic of content as part of drafting this one. I did this because I don’t think, to go back to the problematic conflation* I mentioned earlier, that intending to lean away from words means Grill’s work doesn’t have content. “Content” like intent has two meanings, and I am convinced Grill is content with her practice, which is part of its beauty (and, its content).