Ever wonder about the meaning behind an artwork?

One of my favorite exhibitions this year:"The Cosmopolitan Chicken Project" at Conner Contemporary.  Bok-bok! More about the exhibit HERE.

"The project is about multiculturalism, globalism, genetic engineering, diversity, so many things," Vanmechelen says. "It represents what we are doing with society."

"Like all good art, it shows us something about ourselves," Smith says. "His use of material is very profound," and so, too, is the idea that the gallery itself becomes yet another cage. "I think the point is that as long as we're engaged with the material world, we can never be free."

That's a lot of meaning to invest in some feathery fowl!  Ed Winkleman and his many commenters explore the meaning of artworks after reading this phrase in an art review by Roberta Smith: "artists don't own the meaning of their artworks."

Not everyone who discusses the artist's intention (something I do professionally) does so with the idea that the artist's intentions automatically overrules all possible interpretations. ....

But I am fairly sure we have never sold a work of art over someone's otherwise reluctance because of the artist's intentions.

So what is the role of the artist's intent in presenting artwork, whether in a gallery or museum? For me, that question seems a bit disconnected from the entire studio-to-collection process, as if the work is supposed to have somehow magically appeared installed in a space, without a history of any consequence to the viewer. In the extreme, the question seems to feed from a sense that a viewer is insisting "Don't tell me how it got here, just let me take away from it what I want to, based on my pre-existing preconceptions and beliefs."

As a collector, I need to know the artist's intention!  I am much less drawn to an artwork when the intent can not be articulated. That is not to say that I want to hear a bunch of art speak gibberish!

I especially like it when I see art that makes no sense at first glance but becomes meaningful once the artist explains his/her intent. I just want to understand the work! Which underscores something that I have been proselytizing about for a long time: talk to artists!