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...