November 22, 2021 Issue

“The best way to understand a writer is to interpret the work,” says Maggie Doherty, in her absorbing “Think Twice,” in this week’s issue. Really? Recall Susan Sontag’s famous dictum: “To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world – in order to set up a shadow world of ‘meanings’ ” (“Against Interpretation,” 1964). Sontag favoured experiencing the work – “experiencing the luminousness of the thing itself, of things being what they are.” Robert B. Pippin, in his recent Philosophy by Other Means, is pro-interpretation. He writes, “But the injunction that we should ‘stop interpreting’ a work and just ‘experience’ it is like demanding that we just look at the words on a page and not say what they mean.” He has a point. Nevertheless, I find myself drawn to Sontag’s approach – one that aims for “a really accurate, sharp, loving description of the appearance of a work of art.” It seems to me that if a work is closely described, its meaning will follow. Peter Schjeldahl, in the Introduction to his great Let’s See (2008), says, “As for writerly strategy, if you get the objective givens of a work right enough, its meaning (or failure or lack of meaning) falls in your lap.” Boom! As usual, Schjeldahl nails it. 

But on further reflection, I realize I've overreacted. Doherty isn't arguing for interpretation as the critical approach. She's saying if you want to understand the writer, look at his or her writing. With that, I agree.  

Two Interpretations of Thomas Struth's "Crosby Street, New York, Soho"

Thomas Struth, Crosby Street, New York, Soho (1978)

Robert B. Pippin, in his Philosophy by Other Means (2021), approaches art as a form of thought. He calls his approach “philosophical criticism.” He says the task of philosophical criticism is to illuminate the “philosophical issue” at the heart of the artwork. In theory, this is an interesting approach. Surely, there’s a thinking process involved in the creation of art. One of criticism’s tasks is to track it. But in Pippin’s hands, the approach doesn’t clarify; it occludes. 

The problem is that his own thinking is blinkered by an odd notion. He thinks that the “defeat of theatricality” is “central to establishing the work, any pictorial work in modernity, as an artwork.” I say “odd” because the question of whether a work is theatrical or anti-theatrical seems such a minor consideration. Much more important, in my view, is the work’s style – the way it makes thought visible. 

Take Thomas Struth’s brilliant “Crosby Street, New York, Soho” (1978), for example. Pippin uses it to illustrate his point about how a sense of meaningfulness in art is “opened by the still, mute, eerie absences in the objects depicted.” Fair enough. But bear in mind that “absences in the objects” (italicized by Pippin for emphasis) is, in Pippin’s view, a loaded phrase. It’s one of the indices of anti-theatricality.  

I like Struth’s photo. Why? It has nothing to do with anti-theatricality – at least I don’t think it does. It has to do with pattern, texture, all those subtle shades of grimy gray, and the white light of early morning glinting in the chrome and glass of that parked car. It’s a beautiful picture! But for Struth’s inspiration, it would’ve passed unnoticed. 

In his book, Pippin says that value resides in whether an artwork can be said to reveal “a kind of truth.” Okay. But, for me, value also resides in enjoying the aesthetic aspects of the work.