Burning Question-Who Owns The Meaning of Art?

Via Arts and Letters Daily is an interview with Ray Bradbury wherein he mentions that he never intended people to interpret Fahrenheit 451 as a warning against censorship, but rather a warning against the lack of substance on television. At a time when the few people who had televisions were watching shows on seven inch black and white screens, he rather presciently foresaw a world where people had wall sized televisions. (One even dominates the wall of his house these days.)

So often in the arts we are in a position of interpreting meaning for others. In many cases we don’t have the creator alive and available to check our perceptions against. To a certain extent, artists cede control over what a work means as soon as they show it to another person. Artists need to accept that people will see things in a work that aren’t there and then will start deconstructing it looking for more.

Of course, if the artist tells you point blank that they didn’t infuse their work with the meanings you are seeing, you as the observer can revel in your discovery of the unintended, but shouldn’t insist it means something else to the artist’s face. Bradbury apparently walked out of a class at UCLA because students wouldn’t stop insisting he was talking about censorship.

This type of situation raises questions about interpreting the meaning of art. First of all, if thousands of high school English teachers have been disseminating the wrong information about the themes intended by a living author, what are educators and those serving the same role at arts organizations getting wrong about dead artists?

As we write program notes, conduct Q&As or talk to ushers and patrons in the lobby, how much are we getting wrong? Maybe the idea that Hamlet was motivated by an Oedipal complex never crossed Shakespeare’s mind. (Especially since the concept is never considered until after Freud coined the term.)

Second is the matter of balance. Where does the balance fall between telling people what is meant and telling people there is no single correct interpretation? People come to educators and arts professionals for the tools to process unfamiliar material. We try to give them language and lenses to assist in this endeavor but part of the joy of encountering art is to see something no one told you was there.

The problem is that sometimes these realizations are tainted by the context we bring to the work and don’t reflect the intentions or reality of the artist. Now granted, personal context is the basis of some works of art like Impressionist paintings. But you are also in the position of not being able to tell people they are wrong about Hamlet since you subscribe to and encourage the “No wrong answer” school of thought.

There are lengthy essays written on this whole concept. But let me just toss a thought out there for you to ponder–

Who owns the meaning of a work of art? Even if you are polite to Ray Bradbury and believe that he only intended the book to be about television, is he essentially only accorded the status of a equal interpreter of art because he has missed all the other aspects of the book that speak to you?

The funny thing is, in denying an artist’s stated intent one often holds him/her in greater esteem for being such an adept creator, they subconsciously invested their work with multiple layers of meaning.

Seek Thy Successors!

Given rising concerns in the arts industry about the lack of succession planning and dearth of qualified people to assume organizational reins when the current leadership retires, I thought a recent piece on the Chronicle of Higher Education on recruitment had some relevance.

The article is mainly aimed at academic departments looking for faculty but there are some basic ideas that are good places to start when analyzing one’s search and hiring practices in any profession. Books on the topic may ultimately be more helpful, but reading the article may also make you realize you need to consult those books.

The core focus is on recruitment for positions rather than just advertising them and waiting for people to apply. The author, Gary A. Olson, who is dean of Arts and Sciences at Illinois State University, suggests disseminating information in discipline specific journals and online forums.

The most labor and resource intensive option he suggests is letters soliciting nominations and applications for the position, the more personal, sincere and un-form letter like, the better. Before you dismiss this out of hand as something only big businesess might do, I received two such letters for arts management jobs in the last six months. One was for an executive level position, the other middle management. If it weren’t for the fact that I had no desire to be involved in either field, I might have considered applying. More to the point, active recruiting efforts in the performing arts are out there and the practice is likely to become more prevalent.

Something that I would not have really considered which Olson says is mandatory if you really want to sell the position is the creation of a website exclusively devoted to the search.

“Effective sites will contain more than a position statement and a list of committee members. The objective here is to make the site useful for the candidate, not the committee. The search site should contain links to sites that will best promote the institution and the community, so the key question to ask in constructing a site is, “‘If I were a first-time visitor to the institution, what information would help me understand what I might be getting into were I to accept a position here?'”

Olson also cautions against various self-destructive practices like succumbing to the desire to grill, rather than woo, a candidate; airing organizational dirty laundry; extending poor hospitality and failing to search for solutions in final negotiations for the position.

What I hope not to see, however, is the emergence of recruiting practices similar to those connected with musical directors in the orchestra world where a very small group of big name people are wooed by multiple organizations to the exclusion of all others. That will only serve to exacerbate the panic over succession. (Unless I happen to emerge as a member of that small group, in which case it sounds like a grand idea.)

Too Much Ado About NYC

Scott Walters over at Theatre Ideas has caused a stir on blogosphere the last few days. He did a 10 Questions Interview on Theatre Is Territory that was critical of the NYC orientation of the theatre profession and the training of artists in general. He says a lot of provocative stuff, including “Dogs are trained, not artists,” which make it worth reading. Long time readers might remember Walters from his discussion of Tony Kushner’s suggestion that all performance degrees be abolished that I covered about a year ago.

Actually, I should back up a little, most of the interview was about artist training and the environment in which the arts now operate. Most of the comments on the Theatre is Territory posting, Walters’ response posting, and Theatre is Territory’s response to his response dealt with one answer he gave suggesting that all roads to working in your hometown go through NYC.

Walters actually gets around to expounding on the more central ideas of the Theatre is Territory interview on his blog today. His thoughts on not taking potshots at conservatives in performances and other art works just because it is easy is something to consider.

His expansion on what he envisioned when he said that encouraging students to be innovative, experiment and take risks was the only way to move performance forward aided my understanding of his argument. I initially thought he was calling for more of the same attempt to be avant garde until he qualified it by saying

“Experimenting doesn’t just mean “doing weird shit.” You have to do it for a purpose, and pay attention to the results. And if your purpose is simply, solely something like “to confuse the audience” or “to offend the audience,” then I am going to say “That’s too easy. Raise the bar.”

Ultimately, I have to confess though that the whole NYC centric debate, while interesting, made part of me grumble inside. It wasn’t a big grumble, but still part of my mind was grumbling that the debate wasn’t contributing any solutions to the problems facing the performing arts.

Frankly, it isn’t fair to expect that every conversation on an arts blog help industry professionals sharpen their minds and hone their perceptions so that they ready to synthesize the next great artistic movement and then promote it utilizing the best techniques and emerging media channels.

On the other hand it is tough not to have an ever present anxiety about the future of the arts permeating your psyche even if you only read half the stuff I do every day. Pretty much everyone agrees the current environment is in what Seth Godin terms a conceptual dip.

Maybe Walters is right about how to educate the next generation of artists. A lot of smart people are giving well considered advice about how arts organizations can make a transition from the current mode of operations to a new way. No one really knows which projections about future trends and how to prepare for them is correct.

For many it’s hardly worth panicking that neither you nor they know which strategy is going to be most effective because you most certainly don’t have the time, money or personnel to effect whatever suggested changes you decide are best. (That is if you had time to review the most recent theories about the future of the arts in the first place.)

In this larger context of the arts creeping toward its inevitable doom, it seems rather pointless to debate the NYC effect. Even the commenters pretty much admit the city doesn’t have a nefarious plan to suck the artistic energy out of the rest of the country. Though there is something to be said for leading by example. If you want audiences to stop thinking the only things worth seeing come from NYC, theatres have to stop going there for the majority of their talent pool.

I wonder if the owners of the proprietary arts organizations, the model that preceded the current non-profit arts organizations, had similar discussions as their businesses were dying out. (For the record, I am in the freshness and relevance are needed camp rather than the end is near.) In Performing Arts, The Economic Dilemma . economists Baumol & Bowen note that at the start of the 20th century there were 327 touring theatre companies, less than 50 by 1915 and less than 25 in 1930s.

I imagine those folks were blaming the movies, records and radio for stealing their audiences as much as arts people blame DVDs, the internet and big screen televisions for diverting attention today. I’m sure they made much ado over factors that had no real bearing on the success of their businesses too because they had no idea what was coming.

Hindsight allows us to take comfort in the fact that vaudeville survived and appeared on television on the Texaco Star Theatre/Milton Berle show and Ed Sullivan. At one time there was a more golden era for the current non-profit arts model with subscribers packing the halls.

But it is no guarantee for the future. All this proves is that there is a law of conservation of artistic energy–it can not be destroyed but manifests itself in different media. Our real worry when we complain about empty seats and lack of art in schools isn’t that art will disappear. It is that it will change form and we don’t know what line to stand in to participate.

Manifesting Out of Different Time

Since today is Memorial Day there are forces inspiring me in directions other than blogging. It was by a bit of serendipity that I came across this video last week illustrating that there is nothing new under the sun when it comes to B-Boy dancing.

This excerpt from “Detours – An Experimental Dance Collaboration,” alternates between B-Boy and dance/movements that preceded and inspired them from ethnic dancing, martial arts and films. Some of the sources have been obvious, but it was intriguing to see some of the more obscure origins of some of the moves.

While B-Boy dance has always been impressive to watch, viewing this video segment has increased it in my estimation as integrating that which is best of human physical expression.

Warning: Strong Language in Interview Section at Start and End.