What struck me most about Susan Sontag's Against Interpretation is that Sontag is not actually against interpretation, as the title might imply. What I think that Sontag is trying to say is that we should check our preconceived notions about art and the meaning of art at the museum door when we are viewing it... That we should leave our minds open to the experience of art, and that we should not attempt to actively interpret art. I think that the act of intellectually interpreting art may in some cases limit it's possibility for impact, though in others it may exactly be what the artist had intended.
This communication between the artist and the viewer is extremely interesting to me... Do we not have a message to convey when we speak? And is it not up to the listener (at least in part) to interpret what it is we have said? While I do not feel that we should limit our interpretive abilities through rationalizing away meaning , I also do not feel that this means we should not look for meaning at all.
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