The meaning of some
artwork is unclear or even non-existent when they are created, but waiting for
individuals to find out, so that the uncertainty of artworks’ meaning results
in multifarious interpretations from different viewers. Such kind of work mainly focuses on the
interaction between the artwork and appreciators, which makes the work
full of mystery and promotes viewers to think critically, to some extent. Thus, the feeling of viewers plays a vital and essential
role in the work, which means that although artist creates the work without
definite meaning, the public can create a wide variety of meanings: that is, a part of ‘Relational Aesthetics’
(Bourriaud, 1998), to discuss the relationship between individual and community, interaction between individual and
individual, and transaction of aesthetic experience among different
individuals.
Under this circumstance, the artist enables viewers to become
aware of their own present status in the perception of the artwork. For instance, Juan Muñoz (1996) claimed
that his work is about waiting, waiting for something to happen that might
never happen. Thus, it can be seen, that, essentially, the
meaning of Muñoz’s work is pure potentiality and the uncertainty of the future.
When people asked Muñoz’s
occupation, he would respond simply that he was a ‘storyteller’. Actually, in some cases, he just creates
or reforms a scene of unsettled story, in which the viewer is half part of
‘storyteller’ together with Muñoz.
In the work Double
Bind (Fig. 4), Muñoz creates a space – a given room
for the public, in which viewers can receive a given experience at a specific
given time instead of ultimately trying to transcend the physicality of
experience. In Susan May (2001) ’s
opinion, the viewer becomes part of the space and the space becomes part of the
viewer, and the physical sense of being is enhanced to such a degree as to
almost become an ‘out of body’ experience. Thus, in a sense, the viewer acts as an integral supplement
to the space and every objects of stillness in the room are to highlight the
viewer of movement. In a given time when a viewer sees the exhibition, the process
of which exactly fulfils the uncertainty of the meaning, so that each and every
one of the viewers can achieve his/her individual value in the given room, and
then the meaning of the work is accomplished between Muñoz and viewers.
We are
confronted in modern times with the task of placing and displacing objects in a
given environment. It requires an
understanding of the physical framework, but also of the spectator’s arrival
into the room. You have to make
this person trust for a second that what he wishes to believe is true. And maybe you can spin that into
another reality and make him wonder.
(Muñoz, 2001 p. 74)
In this day and age – a media-saturated age, high
technology has become prevalent.
With the wide application of computers, some people claim that public
exhibitions will not be needed because people can have a look at artistic
objects works online. However, the
work of Muñoz can overwhelmingly refute the claim – when people stand in the
given space, they can feast their eyes on all kinds of objects there and
experience the exquisite layout and the wonder of another reality with their
own eyes in an active way instead of in a passive manner by looking at what are
being displayed to us by others on the boring, inactive and static screen. Consequently, what we see from a computer screen is, after
all, not exactly the same as what we see and feel with our own eyes on site, not
to mention that, for Double Bind, the
viewer is intimately bound up with it.
Indeed, this kind of confused meaning promotes
people to think intellectually and emotionally on the grounds that his
installations are contrary to people’s usual experiences and expectations in
terms of aesthetic experience. Unlike
Bacon, whose aim of paintings is to record memory
trace of past events, Muñoz’s installations are about the future – cannot
completely be forecast, which means he leads viewers to think of their life and
things happening in the world, either happy or sad. According to Chunchen, ‘Just as our age is more and more
globalized, art becomes more synthesized.
In this new tendency, art imperceptibly becomes more closely associated
with audience, which results in collaboration and participation forms of art.’ (2009,
p. 89) As a consequence, the collaboration between such
kind of artists and viewers is more intimate, complicated and diversified,
which is beneficial for viewers to think more about the meaning based more on
themselves and realize the importance of themselves in the process of
appreciating artwork.
Nevertheless, in some cases, artists express the meaning of artwork
hiddenly and potentially,
which seems they merely express their personal emotions or viewpoints rather than focusing
on the interaction between the public and artists themselves. It is clearly natural that such kind of work is difficult to
entirely be interpreted and the collaboration between artist and viewer seems non-existent. However, it is, I think, an indisputable fact that all artwork has the meaning of
existence, so that the expression of meaning in such work and the
relationship between creators and appreciators is much more
subtle.
Towards the metaphorical function of two elevators
in Double Bind (Fig. 5), in the
conversation with James Lingwood in May 2001, Muñoz pointed out, ‘They aren’t
metaphors for anything. They are elevators
going up and down.’ By researching
most of his work, I am convinced that the medium of metaphor is the moment of
elevators’ movement in the space of stillness instead of the objects themselves
that are placed artificially. In addition, the elevator and the
movement of the elevator reflect the stillness and the movement, in which Muñoz
creates a new space – an instant wonder moment, which is exactly the ‘another
reality’ he mentions and the medium of metaphor he unintentionally hides. In the metaphorical space, the viewer
is the leading role of creating different unsettled stories.
According to Willats, ‘The artist directs the
audience’s attention towards a given view, and provides them with the means to
examine it in a particular way, but does not prescribe specific meaning that
should be brought to bear on it.’ (1976 p. 3) Though Muñoz called his work ‘sculpture’, it was more
concerned with the movement of the object than with its presence. Rather than showing us how objects look
from one vantage point at one moment in time, he tends to be more interested in
making viewers aware of the system of interaction, communicate everything they
know and feel about a special space created by objects which, like visionary
architecture, contains the viewer, thus encouraging them to question rather
than passively accepting the ‘official’ version of things. The process of questioning is exactly the
process of collaboration
between artist and viewer.
Naturally, it will result in multifarious outcomes.
Indeed, ‘the way we see things is affected
by what we know or what we believe’ (Berger, 1972 p. 8). That is, what people can gain from the
artwork depends on their artistic accomplishment and aesthetic experience, and naturally,
the meaning produced by the viewers is different
from the artists because nobody can truly speculate on the original intention
of the work. But the process of
guessing and research is already meaningful, which is exactly a part of meaning
of appreciating a piece of artwork no matter what the intention of the artwork
is.
Fig. 4 Double Bind, 2001
Muñoz,
J. (2001) Juan Muñoz: Double Bind at Tate Modern.
London: Tate Publishing
Fig. 5 The Elevator of Double Bind, 2001
Muñoz,
J. (2001) Juan Muñoz: Double Bind at Tate Modern.
London: Tate Publishing
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