More on Intentionalism and Phoebe Washburn

Through this entire Phoebe Washburn essay, it seems that I haven't directly addressed the arguable point that artworks have communicative meanings similar to linguistic utterances. It's not an issue that I consider here but it's one that needs further consideration.

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Since I’ve written “Hypothetical Intentionalism, Interpretation, and Phoebe Washburn”, the Deutsche Guggenheim has released a book concerning Phoebe Washburn’s installation Regulated Fool’s Milk Meadow.

(image taken from amazon.com's product description)

There are two writings of interest to my investigation of Washburn’s intentionality within the book: “Phoebe Washburn’s Follies: A Hysteria of Moving Parts” by Jan Avgikos and “Interview: Joan Young Talks with Phoebe Washburn.” In Avgikos’ essay, the conflict between Washburn’s intentions and the apparent social concerns in her work appears. Avgikos writes,

...her [Washburn’s] structures, built from repurposed materials pressed into double duty as farming units, have the potential to point to global concerns and to reference the ingenuity of populations who make do with less than the best.

Avgikos’ third world comment is a social element that I didn’t consider before but it makes sense and falls in line with the string of worldly concerns Washburn’s work calls to mind. It makes sense because Washburn collects detritus and uses it to create new structures. Poverty-stricken nations have no choice but to do so. However, it’s not clear what Avgikos means by using the word “potential.” She could either be saying that Washburn’s works have the potential to conjure “global concerns” in the mind of each viewer or that Washburn’s works show potential for future emphasis in that direction. Either way, Avgikos addresses social consciousness in reaction to Phoebe Washburn’s oeuvre (which makes the comments relevant to Washburn’s intentionality dilemma). Most intriguingly, Avgikos follows this statement up by writing, “Washburn claims only to be influenced by the exigencies of what she terms the “spontaneous architecture” she encounters on the streets of New York.” The word “claims” goes so far to suggest that Avgikos may even believe that Washburn isn’t being entirely truthful about her dismissal of environmental concerns as an influence in her work. These concerns are so strongly embedded in Washburn’s work that when she disregards them, writers question the validity of Washburn’s comments about her own work (a question that is brought up almost universally when I discuss this issue with other artists. It seems most want to entirely dismiss the issue with the comment, "maybe she's lying.")

Avgikos directly addresses the issue of intentionality in the following excerpt:

Despite her own intentionality, the gambit of her work seems readily able to race a continuum from spontaneous street architecture, past what might be called “world architecture”–whether we are thinking about clusters of shelters in Lagos or the Watts Towers in Los Angeles–right up the ladder of success to reference the early work of Frank Gehry and the redesign of his residence in Santa Monica in the late 70's, from an ordinary bungalow to a structure that looks as if it had been haphazardly dismantled and blown back together.

In this specific circumstance, Avgikos is referring to the distinction between Washburn’s said source of inspiration, those of the architecture and state of refuse in New York City, and ones that an architectural historian is aware of. However, the words despite her own intentionality, even if not written directly in reference to green concerns, again show there is a disparity between Washburn’s intentions and her work.

Avgikos brought the focus back to social responsibility when she wrote:

Washburn does not introduce narrative dimensions into the work. There is no advocacy, no moralizing, no prescribing, no message with respect to social situations or dilemmas. Her unique version of what might be seen as “living architecture” derives from formal concerns. In Everyone’s a Giant, an elaborately simple apparatus for growing algae is tucked into the interior of the installation. Does this element reference a potential solution for world hunger? Or is it simply what it is–an experiment in green? What is verifiable, from the perspective of the artist’s intentions, is this: It is the hum and buzz of everyday life at its most mundane and utilitarian levels–what might also be described as life’s most “unscripted moments”– that interest and inspire her.

There are many things to be said about this quote. First of all, the fact that so much focus is put on Washburn’s “intentionality dilemma” in a book put out by the gallery who hosted her exhibition, a book that is listed as co-authored by her, shows the inherent nature of the problem in between Washburn’s intentions and her work. It almost seems that if this problem didn’t come up, the authors would have been purposefully neglecting a crucial element to interpretation of Washburn’s work. Avgikos’ words reinforce what I discovered before, that Washburn’s work is born out of formal instead of environmental concerns and that this distinction is only made through conversing with Washburn. It is not one that can be made from the work since the work seems obviously socially conscious. Avgikos’ words “what is verifiable” strike at the heart of intentionalism. This phrase calls into question every environmental interpretation because Avgikos is (perhaps unknowingly) stating that the only "meaning" that can be proved or “verified” is that which the artist intends. The only meaning that can be concretely ascribed to the work is the one that Washburn concedes. And that meaning, in the case of Everyone’s a Giant, is inspired by “the hum and buzz of everyday life at its most mundane...” Is meaning only proven when it is verified by the artist? This comment is wholly absolute intentionalist in nature and I disagree. The fact that the appropriate audience of Washburn’s work generally ascribes a meaning to it that is different from that which Washburn claims shows that there are multiple meanings, or, more correctly, multiple interpretations that are not entirely restricted to Washburn’s intentions.

There is an elephant in the room and that is the question: Is there even a problem here? Can’t Washburn’s intentions and her work meaning coexist as interrelated but not entirely the same? Can’t we just say that her work has transcended her intentions in eliciting global concerns and leave it at that? It would be easy to write off if the issue didn’t recur every time Washburn is questioned about her work. In Regulated Fool’s Milk Meadow, Joan Young interviews Phoebe Washburn. In this interview, even though Avgikos has already discussed the environmental dilemma in her essay, Young asked, “You collect a lot of materials and scrap wood from the street, and incorporate previously used materials in your work. Does this practice of recycling grow out of environmental concerns?” Washburn replied:

I think it’s born out of something much more basic, like just being greedy and lazy. I don’t collect and reuse these materials in an effort to make some sort of political or social statement. I, early on, found it very satisfying to collect materials–before it was cardboard and newspaper and now for a while it has been wood. There is always something out there to find, and it is free for the taking and if you don’t pick it up now it will most likely be gone later.

This response is extremely similar to the one she gave at the lecture I attended down to her use of the words “greedy and lazy.” Obviously, Washburn employs these words because they are the antithesis of the environmentalist code. It’s her way of absolutely distancing herself from the activist label. But this consistent response is sending a message contradictory to her work. Sure, one could possibly argue that viewers are projecting too much into her work. Maybe we want it so bad to be an environmental commentary that we add more weight to the work than is actually there. But I don’t think so and that assertion is backed up by the recurring appearance of the problem. If there wasn’t a conflict between Washburn’s work meaning and her intentions than it wouldn’t keep coming up. Honigman, the University of the Arts students, Avgikos, and Young--amongst others–have all had the same question: Is your work an environmental commentary? And Washburn has adamantly replied: No.

Does this conclusion diminish Washburn’s work? Not in my eyes. I’m a huge fan of Washburn’s work because of its use of common materials to create awe-inspiring structures that give different experiences for as many angles as they can be viewed from. I enjoy the juxtaposition of their extravagant complexity and their inherent fallibility and uselessness. Regulated Fool’s Milk Meadow (the work) feels like a visual playground that is at the same time common and wondrous. So, does that mean that the contradiction between Washburn’s intentions and her work, in the end, doesn’t matter? Has all this philosophizing about intentions come to nothing because I’m going to continue appreciating her work despite the problem? It seems like galleries are going the same route. Washburn is having shows all over the world in spite of or in ignorance of this inherent disparity. The consequence of this result in terms of intentionalism is the last one I wanted to come upon: anti-intentionalism. If Washburn’s work is successful and inspiring, the fact that her intentions differ from her work’s meaning does not matter. The appropriate audience's environmentally-centered interpretation and Washburn's contrary intentions can coexist.

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This post is my final one on Phoebe Washburn. Thank you all for reading. See you soon!

People are talking

I put this up on the HyperCritical blog, but wanted to alert the occasional reader of this blog about Art in Context. Check it out. And please, suggest new links for this page.

Hypothetical Intentionalism, Interpretation, and Phoebe Washburn Part III

This post is the third part of my essay on Intentionalism and Phoebe Washburn. To read it from the beginning, scroll down to the first part...

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Paisley Livingston in Art and Intention: A Philosophical Study discusses an example that relates to this situation as well. Livingston says:


...We tell a story in which a Japanese novelist—let's call him Soseki the Strange—holds a press conference in which he sincerely and accurately reveals his intention that the three main characters in his trilogy were meant to be the successive appearances of a Martian in disguise. Such a reading is coherent with the textual evidence in the sense that nothing in the texts, standardly and literally interpreted, explicitly contradicts such a claim. Yet the Martian story-line seems tacked on and extraneous, and most if not all readers would have failed to think of it had they not read the interview. Do we not want to deny the intentionalist's idea that the fact that the author wrote with this implicit content in mind suffices to make such a daft interpretation the correct reading of the story?


One does not need to be familiar with Natsume Soseki's work in order to understand the implications of the example. However, one does need to understand that in this case, Livingston is postulating a fictional author called "Soseki the Strange" in order to interject a hypothesized reading that isn't related to Soseki's actual works at all. Soseki's novels have nothing to do with aliens. Livingston points out that the "alien intention" is not contradictory to the content of the works, however, it is "tacked on and extraneous and most if not all readers would have failed to think of it had they not read the interview." Since Soseki the Strange's intentions are not supported by and do not "mesh" well with the content of the work, they need to be dismissed in order to have coherent meaning evident in the text or work. I am arguing that Phoebe Washburn's intentions, while not as out-of-left-field as Soseki the Strange's alien intentions, directly contradict implicit (and sometimes explicit) meanings in her work and therefore should be written off as well.


Livingston considers two ways for intentionalists to handle this situation. We either accept Washburn's statements that the environmentalist aspect of her work is a byproduct of her process-oriented explorations even though it doesn't mesh with the implicit or explicit content of her work (the absolute intentionalist would have to take this position) and regard the only valid interpretation as one that is not environmentally centered (or environmental at all, really) or we adopt a "more restrictive kind of filter or constraint specifying which intentions actually determine utterance or work meaning." The former is unsatisfactory and the latter is unknowable. When Livingston says "which intentions actually determine utterance or work meaning," he's referring to the distinction between semantic and categorial intentions emphasized by Levinson. Semantic intentions refer to what a work means and categorial intentions refer to what a work is. For example, if an artist chooses to make an impressionist painting, that is a categorial intention. If an artist chooses to make that impressionist work about leisure, then that is a semantic intention. Levinson argues that categorial intentions are interpretively prior to semantic ones and are therefore more determinate of the interpretation. He says we have to know what a work is before we can know what it means. We have to recognize the work as impressionist so then we can compare it to the historical lineage of impressionist works and use the proper vocabulary to assess its success. Only after we do that can we know what it means.

Livingston argues that the lines between categorial and semantic intentions are too blurry to be interpretively relevant. I'll apply this distinction to the Washburn situation in terms of the hypothetical intentionalist interpretation and see what happens. From the perspective of the appropriate viewer, Washburn's categorial intention is to make an installation. Her semantic one is to make an environmental commentary on how we should recycle, care for our natural environment, and create our societal structures around these two concerns. It is not clear as to which intention is more determinative. One could say that, under this interpretation, Washburn is an activist and therefore environmental concerns are paramount. The choice of installation would then simply be made because Washburn thought it was the best and most aesthetically engaging way to communicate the message. However, the fact that it is an installation and not a painting could be construed as more determinative of the work than the fact that it is a commentary on sociopolitical issues because its installationality is its nature. If we lose the framework of installation we have no idea what the work would be. But concurrently, if we lose the meaning of environmentalism we have no idea what the work would be either. Whatever choice was made first would seem to be more determinative. If Washburn made the choice to make a social commentary and then that beget the installation, the semantic choice could be said to be more determinative. But if she chose to make installations and then decided to make them about environmentalism, then the categorial intention could be said to be more determinative.

Phoebe Washburn, "Nothing's Cutie," 2004

www.haberarts.com/washburn.htm

Neither the semantic or categorial intention can be said to be more inherently determinative and the distinction does not inform this interpretation. However, that fact does not defeat the hypothetical intentionalist interpretation. One can say that the appropriate audience's hypothesis of Washburn's intentions need not include any semantic or categorial distinction.


I'm going to backtrack here to re-examine what I've said. The conclusion to exclude Washburn's actual statements about her intentions in favor of using the appropriate audience's hypothesis seems dangerously anti-intentionalist. How can something be intentionalist and completely disregard the artist's actual intentions? Sometimes Levinson refers to his position as non-intentionalist because it doesn't disregard intentions, recognizing them as needed for interpretation, but it doesn't favor the artist's actual intentions. I agree with this notion that Levinson's take is non-intentionalist because an interpretation, by definition, can't be intentionalist if it dismisses the artist's actual intentions. Stanley Fish might argue otherwise. Fish's position is that the work can't be anything else but what the author intended it to be. However, as his logic goes, those intentions are revealed through the trial and error process of successive interpretations and therefore, in the end, it is the interpreter's collective interpretations that are instrumental as to what the author intended. Again, the collective audience creating the artist's intentions through interpretation is problematic but is it inevitable?

Phoebe Washburn, "Poor Man's Lobster," 2005

http://www.thebrooklynrail.org/arts/july05/makeitnow.html

Also, through using this hypothetical intentionalist interpretation, I was left with interpreting Washburn as an environmental artist. Doesn't that seem necessarily false? Even if her explicitly stated intentions are incompatible with the content of her work, it still seems unacceptable to regard Washburn as an environmentalist when in fact she's not. And from my logic (which of course can be disputed if one makes a solid case for the fact that environmentalism is neither implicitly or explicitly in Washburn's work, which I can't see as being valid), the hypothetical intentionalist would be left with exactly such a state. The interpreter would then have to regard Washburn as an environmental artist even when she's not. This seems overtly fictional. One must keep in mind that I'm applying the appropriate audience's interpretation on the actual artist. Isn't this the inevitable end of hypothetical intentionalism? If one is hypothesizing an artist's intentions, isn't that distinction made solely to attribute intentions that would otherwise be considered false in place of the artist's actual intentions? And doesn't the existence of this essay inhibit any dismissal of Washburn's actual intentions? Because since I've now made them front and center aren't they inevitably going to be under consideration? We cannot erase the record of her statement. Any interpretation that does not include her actual statements now would seem lacking and blind in their embrace of her environmentalism. The hypothetical intentionalist argument, then, isn't valid in this context. We cannot simply discard Washburn's actual intentions in favor of some idealized notion of what the appropriate reader would interpret.


Noel Carroll, in Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays, makes a statement that coincides with my conclusion for this situation. He says,


Consider an analogy. We employ scientific method in order to approximate the truth. Were we to discover that our best scientific hypothesis were false - that something else were the case - would we stick with a methodologically sound but false hypothesis, or would we go with what we knew to be true? Clearly, the very aims of science would recommend that we live with the truth. Similarly, where actual intentionalism and hypothetical intentionalism diverge in their results, given the comparable aims of their methodologies, why would we stick with the results of the hypothetical intentionalist's interpretation when a true account of an author's actual intention is available?


Why would we hold the appropriate audience's hypothesis to be correct over our knowledge of Washburn's actual intentions?

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Bibliography

Baxandall, Michael. Patterns of Intention. Yale University, 1985.

Carroll, NoËl. Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

Currie, Gregory. Arts and Minds. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2004.

Davies, Stephen. Definitions of Art. Cornell University Press, 1991.

Dutton, Dennis. Why Intentionalism Won’t Go Away. From Literature and the Question of Philosophy edited by Anthony J. Cascardi. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins. University Press, 1987.

Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in This Class? Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England. Harvard University Press, 1980.

Gibbs, Raymond W. Intentions in the Experience of Meaning. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Hirsch, E.D. Jr. The Aims of Interpretation. The University of Chicago Press. Chicago, 1976.

Livingston, Paisley. Art and Intention: A Philosophical Study. Oxford, England: Clarendon, 2005.

Levinson, Jerrold. The Pleasures of Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996.

-Artful Intentions: Paisley Livingston, Art and Intention: A Philosophical Study. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65:3 Summer 2007.

Lyon, Arabla. Intentions: Negotiated, Contested, and Ignored. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998.

Mele, Alfred R. Autonomous Agents: From Self-Control to Autonomy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Nehamas, Alexander. The Postulated Author: Critical Monism as a Regulative Ideal. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 8, No. 1. (Autumn, 1981), pp. 133-149.

Waldron, Jeremy. Legislators' Intentions and Unintentional Legislation. Law and Interpretation: Essays In Legal Philosophy.

Wimsatt, W.K. and Beardsley, Monroe. The Intentional Fallacy. From The Verbal Icon: Studies in the Meaning of Poetry. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1954.

Zach Feuer Gallery. "Pheobe Washburn." 09/04/2007. http://www.lflgallery.com/phoebewashburn.html

Devine, John. "Spontaneous Architecture", Houston Press, 2/20/03

Israel, Nico, "Phoebe Washburn", Artforum, November 2004, p. 227

Saltz, Jerry, "Adding Up, Letting Go", The Village Voice, Sept. 29 - Oct. 5, 2004, p. 78

Robinson, Andrew, "Muscular Installation of Emerging Artist", Gay City News, Vol. 3, Issue 328, July 8-14, 2004

Amy, Michael, "Phoebe Washburn at LFL", Art in America, January 2005, p. 117

Chen, Aric “Art to Paste Right Onto Walls”,NY Times August 31 2006 p. F 3

Friedling, Melissa Pearl, "Phoebe Washburn", Flash Art, November/December 2004, p. 68

Holliday, Frank, "Colored Layers of Wonder", Gay City News, September 23-29, 2004, p. 21

Honigman, Ana Finel, "New York Horticulture", Artnet.com, April 22, 2004

-"Resurrection", Artnet.com, September 28, 2004

Johnson, Ken "Art in Review", The New York Times, E36, 6/28/02

- "Listings (recommended)" The New York Times, pg. E36, 7/19/02

-"Phoebe Washburn / Simone Shubuck", The New York Times, October 1, 2004, p. E31

Volta Show 03. "Phoebe Washburn represented by the Zach Feuer Gallery." 09/05/07 http://www.voltashow.com/index.php?id=790

Hammer Museum. "Hammer Projects: Phoebe Washburn" by Ana Finel Honigman. 09/05/07. http://www.hammer.ucla.edu/exhibitions/88/Treehugger.com.

"Environmental and Sustainable Artist: Phoebe Washburn" by Katherine Ricketson. 09/04/07. http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/environmental_s.php

Institute of Contemporary Art from the University of Pennsylvania. "Ramp Project: Phoebe Washburn, Vacational Trappings and Wildlife Worries." 09/04/2007. http://www.icaphila.org/exhibitions/washburn.php

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This is the end of the essay. However, the next post will consist of the essential follow-up, creatively titled More on Intentionalism and Phoebe Washburn.

Hypothetical Intentionalism, Interpretation, and Phoebe Washburn Part II

Under the new light of Washburn's response, I hunted on the internet for other signs of Washburn downplaying the environmental aspect of her work and sure enough, I found one. Amidst the reviews of Phoebe Washburn's work on the Zach Feuer gallery website (the gallery Washburn belongs to), there's a transcript of an interview with Washburn conducted by Ana Finel Honigman. The first question Honigman asks is, " Do you intend your work as an criticism of cultural or personal wastefulness?" And Washburn's response: "People frequently ask me about the political connotations of using recycled materials. While I recognize the environmentalist aspect of the work; my choice in materials is mostly guided by convenience. I tend to use materials that I can easily collect and carry to my studio. What I collect and use is determined by my desire to collapse the division between my time making art and my daily routine." This reply is a softer one than that which she gave at the lecture, but it's essentially the same with one difference that needs to be noted. She officially recognizes here that there is an "environmentalist aspect of the work." In this statement, in contrast with the one she gave at the lecture, she recognizes the implicit environmental concerns in her work as an element instead of saying that an environmental reading is one other people impose. Perhaps she never truly believed the latter but her response at the lecture made one wonder if that was the case. Through this response, Washburn reaffirms her statement about the original intention of her work by saying it "is mostly guided by convenience. I tend to use materials that I can easily collect and carry to my studio." This is hard evidence (because it's an official interview posted on her gallery's website), as opposed to my arguably subjective account of her lecture, that Washburn considers convenience or laziness as at least partial motivation for her process and will prioritize that aspect over any proposed environmental concern.

Later in the interview, Ana Finel Honigman poses another question relevant to this inquiry. She says, "If the process is paramount, than why court potential political readings of your work by building structures that resemble organic shapes or cityscapes out of recycled materials?" Washburn's response is less critical than the question: "Often the layered surfaces appear to look topographical or like cities built into a cliff because when I am building, I am inspired by unusual architecture. I am particularly interested in the structure of buildings in shanty-towns that are similarly constructed out of random materials put together in unconventional ways." Again, Washburn is citing influences that have nothing to do with environmental concerns (and environmental here is defined as a concern with sociopolitical issues in reference to topics such as waste disposal and resource renewal as opposed to simply being inquisitive about architectural surroundings).

In order to inform the reader of the complexity of my underlying concerns with this issue I must explain intentionalism and it’s relation to interpretation. In Art and Intentions: A Philosophical Study, Paisely Livingston says, “It is the intentionalist's thesis that if one's goal is that of understanding and appreciating the work of art in a historically and artistically appropriate (that is, non-anachronistic) manner…or in its capacity as a work of art, then a concern with intended meaning is necessary to the successful realization of one's interpretative project.” In order for an interpretation of a work(s) to be valid, the interpretation has to be compatible with the intentions of the artist within said artist‘s proper historical context. I’ll use an example from Denis Dutton’s Why Intentionalism Won’t Go Away to illustrate this notion (with a different goal. Dutton was arguing for why we cannot apply the interpretation that grants the greatest value to a work simply because it makes the work more valuable). Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach was published in 1970[1] and is a notoriously bad novella (justly regarded as such, I‘ve read some of it). The story is a fable about a seagull trying to learn how to fly and it’s supposed to be inspirational to the human spirit but actually it’s like a Disney reject and an example of bad, cheesy literature. Now, if someone discovered this story at the library, not knowing anything about the author and remarked, “This story is hilarious because it’s ironic,” that interpretation would be a misreading because it‘s incompatible with the author‘s intentions and with the actuality of the work. There’s no evidence to support that Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an ironic novella. The consistency in theme and tone in Richard Bach’s other works like “A Gift of Wings,” “There’s No Such Place as Far Away,” and “A Bridge Across Forever: A Love Story” reinforce the fact that Bach’s work is sincere (not that‘s there‘s any argument for the opposite) and gives us an authorial context to read Jonathan Livingston Seagull. So, in this case, knowing the author’s intentions is essential for the viewer to correctly interpret the work and according to some intentionalists, that’s always so[2].

Now that intentionalism has been briefly sketched, one can see how it directly relates to the Phoebe Washburn situation. Since environmentalism is implicit in Phoebe Washburn’s works through her recycling, her nurturing of organic life, and her explorations of sustainability but she denies environmentalism as an intention, we have a situation in which an environmental interpretation is valid based on the work but not in terms of Washburn’s intentions in making the work. The problem with that assertion is that when one says a work is environmental, one is usually implying that the artist has made an environmentally conscious statement. How can a work be environmental in nature without the artist being environmentally conscious? Well, since Phoebe Washburn's process and materials have environmental implications and environmental commentary wasn't Washburn's intentions, the connection from artist to work is a contradiction. Consider this example: If a student used fuel oil as a medium for his work, the first question a professor would ask is "Why oil?" Using oil, in America, would have obvious social and political connotations that the artist must consider. One cannot use fuel oil and deny its relation to the American economic system and the environmental concerns that accompany it because those concerns are implicit in the medium. American society depends on fuel oil and this dependence is detrimental to the environment. Phoebe Washburn's recycling, nurturing organic growth, and creating elaborate "self-sustaining" systems makes her work implicitly environmental. If one analyzes the titles to Washburn's works like An American Pool and Vacational Trappings and Wildlife Worries, it's seems obvious that Washburn is aware of her work's implicit commentaries and is actually emphasizing them in the titles. This information is directly contradictory. In Washburn's statements, she sweeps environmental commentary to the side but in her works and titles it seems to be emphasized. Now, in contrast to my hypothetical fuel oil example, Washburn does not deny the environmental aspects but she does tell us that she didn't take up those methods with the environmental concerns in mind. It would be like using oil for it's engaging formality without realizing it's implicit economic relations. In this situation, it would seem that since Washburn's original intentions neglect and possibly contradict an essential element of her work (one cannot remove the environmental implications of her process and installations) that the best interpretation would be that of an "appropriate audience" (more on this soon). Washburn's work would then be optimized from their emphasis on rather than downplay of the inherent environmental aspects of the work.

Phoebe Washburn, "Woodwall," 2006
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/02/environmental_s.php

This line of thought brings me to hypothetical intentionalism. HI makes the argument that the best interpretation of an artwork is that in which an appropriate audience member uses the available contextual information about the work to postulate what the artist actually intended. This form of intentionalism and my understanding of it come directly from Jerrold Levinson' (who derived much of his philosophy from William Tolhurst). The “appropriate audience” is one that has the tools to construct an interpretation based on all the evidentiary information available which includes historical and artistical context. For example, if one wants to have a valid interpretation of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel, that audience member should have an understanding of the context that work was made within. One would be expected to be familiar with Michelangelo’s relationship to Pope Julius II considering that this pope was the one who commissioned the work. In The Pleasures of Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays, Levinson says:

We arrive at utterance meaning by aiming at utterer's meaning in the most comprehensive and informed manner we can muster as the utterance's intended recipients. Actual utterer's intention, then, is not what is determinative of the meaning of a literary offering or other linguistic discourse, but rather such intention as optimally hypothesized, given all the resources available to us in the work's internal structure and the relevant surrounding context of creation, in all its legitimately invoked specificity. The core of utterance meaning can be conceived of analytically as our best appropriately informed projection of author's intended meaning from our positions as intended interpreters.

Got all that? When Levinson uses the word “utterance” he’s referring to verbal statements, literary works, paintings, eg. intentional creations (are there any other kind?). When he says “utterance meaning” he does so to distinctively separate the meaning of the work from the intentions of the artist (a distinction the absolute intentionalist like Stanley Fish would deny because to them, the work’s meaning and the artist’s intention are the same). Levinson says “aiming at” to make sure that the interpreter is considering the artist’s intentions in the work and is not giving an anti-intentionalist interpretation which, by definition, disregards the intentions of the “utterer.” Levinson uses the words “in the most comprehensive and informed manner,” to make sure that we, as interpreters, are exhausting all of the available information about the subject. “Utterance’s intended recipients” is a phrase to concretely state that the interpreter is within an intended audience of the work. Someone who is not used to interpreting art and who has no idea of the context of Washburn’s work cannot give a valid interpretation of her work.

Levinson emphasizes “actual” in reference to “utterer’s intention” to distinguish the artist’s intentions in creation of the work from those of what the interpreter hypothesizes as the artist’s intentions. This intention “then, is not what is determinative of the meaning of a literary offering or other linguistic discourse (as well as artworks), but rather such intention as optimally hypothesized., given all the resources available to us in the work’s internal structure and the relevant surrounding context of creation, in all its legitimately invoked specificity.” In relation to the Phoebe Washburn situation, using Levinson’s logic, the most valid interpretation would be that of Washburn’s appropriate audience within the proper context. Levinson says, “Thus an appropriate reader, for anything presented in the framework of literature, might be profiled generally as one versed in and cognizant of the tradition out of which the work arises, acquainted with the rest of the author's oeuvre, and perhaps familiar as well with the author's public literary and intellectual identity or persona.” The appropriate audience for Phoebe Washburn's work would obviously be those who have a good amount of experience in interpreting artwork, who have a firm knowledge of art history, who are familiar with her oeuvre, and who have read available interpretations of her work. With this criteria in mind, it seems that most interpreters (who venture to understand the meaning of Washburn's work and don't simply describe formal and art historical concerns) see the works as an environmental commentary. And how could they not? Washburn recycles detritus, nurtures organic life, attempts to sustain complex systems, and references consumerism and wildlife in her titles . Any reasonable person who could accurately recognize these relations would deduce that Washburn's work is environmentally charged.

The appropriate audience would then hypothesize that Washburn's intentions were to make environmentally conscious artworks. Shouldn't this hypothesis be considered wrong? Because those aren't Washburn's intentions; they're a byproduct of her explorations. One could say that in light of Washburn's comments about her intentions, the informed interpreter would have to take those statements into consideration when hypothesizing what Washburn meant. But this logic seems faulty. If we have explicit statements from Washburn about what her intentions were, what's the point of hypothesizing her intentions? Can't one simply say "Washburn's actual intentions are not environmental but process-oriented?" If we didn't have any explicitly stated intentions by the artist or any information about the artist, and the work was the only thing we had to go on, say in the case of the medieval story Sir Gawain and the Green Knight where the author is anonymous, then perhaps hypothesizing the author's intentions would make sense. In Phoebe Washburn's situation it seems impossible to say, "Washburn's intentions were environmental in nature" when we have proof they weren't. Perhaps one could fault me on saying that the appropriate audience's interpretation would certainly be an environmental one because Washburn's comments from the interview with Honigman are available to any interested party in contrast to the privatized information of the lecture. And therefore, one could say that the informed interpreter would be enlightened as to Washburn's actual intentions and could deduce that they are not environmental in nature. But still, this detail doesn't change the fact that we have access to Washburn's actual intentions and this access renders a hypothesis of what Washburn's actual intentions were an unnecessary endeavor.

Phoebe Washburn, "Somebody's Home at War", 2005
Zach Feuer Gallery, New York
http://www.k9000.ch/archiv_bench_d.html

Levinson addresses this issue somewhat in The Pleasures of Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays when he gives this example:

We might just find out--from Kafka's secret diary, say, or a close informant, or even advanced aliens who were scanning Kafka's thought processes at the time--that Kafka's immediate, explicit intent in writing "A Country Doctor" was in fact to critique rural medical practices, to lampoon their typical unpreparedness and lack of materials, and to expose the deep-seated ignorance of the Czech peasantry. The text could just barely support such a meaning, much as "my car ran out of gas" can perhaps just manage to be the vehicle of a meaning in mind involving cabooses and clouds of chlorine. But this would not, I think, supplant the interpretation given earlier as to what the work, in a reader-accessible, Kafka-specific context, means. Our best construction, in the dual sense specified earlier, of what Kafka the writer is communicating in "A Country Doctor" would trump our discovery of what Kafka the person might oddly have been intending to mean, on the occasion of penning the story.

What Levinson is basically saying here is that even when one has access to actual authorial intentions of a work, if the "best construction" of the appropriate audience as to what the work means optimizes the work than it "trumps" what the author actually intended. One does not need to be familiar with Kafka or "A Country Doctor" to understand Levinson's point. Levinson proposed a correct reading that an appropriate audience member would have for Kafka's story, he then hypothesized finding a writing from the actual author that offers different and less satisfying evidence. He, therefore, says that the interpretation of the appropriate audience does the work more justice than the author's actual intentions. In Levinson's example, he says "the text could barely support such a meaning" and we know he states this to dismiss the author's actual intentions. In the Phoebe Washburn situation, are her actual intentions supported by the work? And if they are less sufficient in terms of optimizing the value of the work, then should we regard the appropriate audience's environmentalist interpretation of her work as the "correct" one? This conclusion at first was unsatisfactory because I thought discounting the artist's actual intentions was impossible but in the case that they aren't true to the actual content of the work then, like Levinson's dismissal of Kafka's postulated writings, the artist's actual stated intentions can be shelved (for now).

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^[1] http://www.inner-growth.info/main_bach.htm

^[2] The fact that the example I use here is a literary one makes no difference. One could easily apply this logic to the visual arts as I will show. Also, I recognize that this part of my reasoning for why Bach’s work is sincere is from extra-textual evidence. But I hold that all available evidence relating to the work should be considered in interpretation.

Hypothetical Intentionalism, Interpretation, and Phoebe Washburn

Hello all! I've recently written this essay and I hope it's informative and entertaining. I'm going to post it on this blog in three parts over the next three weeks. Enjoy!

Abstract

In this essay, I introduce artist Phoebe Washburn and her work, describe elements of the critical reaction to it, set the scene for an experience I had in relation to her, briefly introduce intentionalism, and then explore her work through the lens of hypothetical intentionalism. When I began this essay, my hypothesis was that hypothetical intentionalism would be the best framework within which to interpret Phoebe Washburn's work. However, through the examination of this stance, I realized the method was insufficient.

There are several issues that are either assumed or not dealt with throughout: I take for granted that human's can have conscious intentions. In other words, I don't deal with the cognitive aspect of intentions at all. Also, I assume that one can find a determinate meaning and interpret the value of that specific meaning in an artwork. Finally, I don't deny that there can be different interpretations as long as they are compatible with the essence of the artwork (which exists independently of the reader but not of the artist).

"I'm just a soul whose intentions are good.
Oh, Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood."
Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood
-The Animals

Hypothetical Intentionalism, Interpretation, and Phoebe Washburn

Phoebe Washburn was born in Poughkeepsie, NY in 1973. She received her B.F.A. from Newcomb College, New Orleans, Tulane University, LA in 1996 and her M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts, New York, New York in 2002. Over the last decade, she has become an increasingly popular visual artist which is proven by her record of shows across the globe including Italy, Austria, Switzerland, and Germany, and by the horde of reviews highlighted with ones in Artforum, The New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

It’s not difficult to see why Washburn’s work has been received so well. Her installations simultaneously eat rooms and make them more spacious. She accomplishes this task by suspending the density of her works on Rube Goldbergian scaffolding. In True, False, and Slightly Better, (shown in the Rice Gallery at Rice University, Houston, TX in 2003) one can walk up stairs to overlook the top of the mass (in this case comprised of cardboard) and also venture through the cave- like atmosphere underneath where materials may lie haphazardly.

Installation view of Phoebe Washburn's True, False and Slightly Better
University Gallery, Rice University, Houston, TX, 2003
http://www.rice.edu/sallyport/2006/winter/images/Washurn4.jpg

This dichotomy of condensed surface and spacious skeleton makes Washburn’s work a multi-layered seduction of the aesthete. A key element of Washburn’s work is the fact that she recycles commonly found objects and uses them in several projects. She diligently collects materials like cardboard for sometimes as long as a year and paints and organizes them into heaping constructions that dwarf the viewer. Over time, these found object constructions have grown into what she calls “factories” that house organic growth and are (at Washburn’s own admission) erroneously “self-sufficient” (which means she constructs these elaborate systems that always have unforeseen flaws which she then needs to fix on the fly).

The combination of Washburn’s art as formally impressive and systematically complex perpetuates a wealth of response. Her methodology of recycling materials, housing plant life, and attempting to make her operations self-sufficient undeniably lend themselves to an environmentalist interpretation. Ana Finel Honigman, in a statement for Phoebe Washburn’s exhibition at the Hammer Museum, wrote, “ Phoebe Washburn makes the most poetic case for recycling since Italian author Italo Calvino's description in Invisible Cities,” and “In September 2004 Washburn brilliantly focused on the global and social, not only the local or ecological, ramifications of waste and recycling with Nothing's Cutie at the LFL Gallery.” A statement about Phoebe Washburn for the Volta Show 03 (a globe-spanning, multi-gallery exhibition for contemporary artists) reads, “Phoebe Washburn creates monumental installations while addressing ideas of environmental sustainability and notions of recycling, trash, and landscape.“ Treehugger.com has labeled her an “environmental and sustainable artist.” Cycle-Logical Art ,who operates under the slogan “Recycling Matters for Eco-Art,” promotes Washburn’s work on their website. In “Spontaneous Architecture,” a review of True, False, or Slightly Better, John Devine points out the “inescapable sociological/ecological undercurrents implicit in making art out of trash.” In “Colored Layers of Wonder,” a review of Nothing’s Cutie, Frank Holliday wrote, “Clearly notions of recycling and environmentalism are being raised.” The statement released by the Institute for Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, PA concerning Washburn’s show Vacational Trappings and Wildlife Worries commented, “Washburn's work touches on notions of recycling and environmentalism. She culls her materials—including masses of collapsed cardboard, newspapers, stone, plastic cups and scraps of wood she encounters while out and about from local loading docks, alleyways and recycling bins.”

Installation views of Phobe Washburn's Vacational Trappings and Wildlife Worries
Institute for the Contemporary Arts, Philadelphia, PA, 2007
http://www.blogger.com/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.icaphila.org/exhibitions/washburn.php

To place this information in the context I experienced it in, I must recreate the setting. In the summer of 2007, at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, we (graduate students at the university) had the opportunity to both see Phoebe Washburn’s show Vacational Trappings and Wildlife Worries at the Institute for Contemporary Art and take part in a lecture she gave at the school. Her show was open from April 20th to August 5th (the program’s semester ran from June 15th to August 9th) and her lecture wasn’t taking place until the end of the summer. After we saw the show, a buzz was going around the campus, especially among other environmentally conscious artists, about the issues raised in Phoebe Washburn’s work. One student even wrote a paper and gave a PowerPoint presentation about Washburn’s work in relation to Washburn’s environmental consciousness. And from reviews that the students had read online about Washburn’s work, this environmental theme was reinforced (as is shown in the above quotes). By the time Phoebe Washburn gave her lecture in August 2007 at the University of the Arts, the students had an idea of what they thought Phoebe Washburn’s art was about.

When the lecture finally came, Phoebe Washburn spent her time discussing how she collected the materials, be it cardboard, wood, etc., and how her installations gradually became more complicated systems. She showed slides of her work (True, False, or Slightly Better, Nothing’s Cutie, and Vacational Trappings and Wildlife Worries among others) and accompanied these slides with comments in relation to how the installations were set up, the problems that arose from the complexity of her installations, and the experience of the overwhelming physicality of her works. She said nothing about environmentalism until the question and answer portion of the lecture was opened up and a student said (I‘m paraphrasing but accurately in terms of what was expressed), “There seems to be an environmental commentary inherent in your work through your recycling of refuse and examination of self-sustaining, organic systems. Could you discuss that a little?” Washburn responded, “That interpretation is one that people have about my work but it wasn’t the original intention. In fact, I make art the way I do because I’m lazy and greedy. I use materials that are readily available everywhere in the city so I don’t have to make that much of an effort and I hoard those materials for my work.”

How Phoebe Washburn's work is being received and discussed in contrast to what she said at the lecture is a great example of the dilemma of intentionalism. The subjects recycling and sustainability are undeniably implicit in Phoebe Washburn’s work and those topics are directly related to environmentalism which she, however, denies as a reason for her work. So, can we state that an interpretation of Phoebe Washburn’s work that says her art is a commentary on environmentalism is invalid because that isn‘t her intention? If Phoebe Washburn had never come to the University of the Arts for that lecture, and the students had just seen the show at the Institute for Contemporary Art and read about her work online, they would have continued thinking that her work was about environmentalism. Then the collective interpretation of Washburn’s work, especially in the localized context of this school, would have been that Phoebe Washburn is an environmentally conscious artist who is a champion of the cause due to her successful methodology of recycling materials, nurturing organic growth, and creating apparently self-sufficient systems.

To be continued...

It's thesis time again...

...and once again we're posting the presentation drafts of this year's thesis candidates online. You can find them by following this link. They'll only be available trough December, so hurry up and read 'em.