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.