Lesson 31

Meaning is ascribed to the painting after it has left the studio, and this meaning can change. The meaning of works of art is fluid. If the work lasts, meaning will also change over time. Karl Marx quoting William Blake’s description of energy called this ‘eternal delight‘ when referring to Ancient Greece sculpture. We don’t believe in or worship these Gods and Goddesses that are depicted in these sculptures; we have a different social and political structure and we have had three thousand years of technological development that distances us from the lives of these people. Yet these ancient sculptures appear fresh and have a hold on us. They still seem relevant, though the context and the original meaning has gone. Each age takes from the past its needs that reflect more on itself than critically examining that past world. Maybe it is this longevity that makes it art or what might be considered great art.

Picasso’s Guernica is probably the most famous painting in which the meaning has continually changed, as it has been kicked around Europe and America like a political football.

The most recent and personal example of this is my painting of the Witch computer, the Harwell Dekatron/Witch computer that I had not seen for 30 years. This defunct computer – which I first encountered in Birmingham Museum of Science and Industry in 1982 – has been resurrected, rebooted, at The National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park. The narrative has changed, the meaning of my painting has changed. The original intentions were to make a witty, ironic comment on ‘computer art’, the mad idea of painting a computer. That is, a painting of a computer posing as ‘computer art’, or computer art considered as a painting of a computer. Now the story of the painting’s neglect and the survival story of the computer seem to parallel each other. Rather than irony, the painting seems to have become an affectionate homage to this iconic early world famous computer.

Artists should not talk about what their work means: they are going to get it wrong. However, there is a lot to talk about; along with the methodologies of picture making which is what some artists solely talk about, the artist can detail what the intentions are, what is proposed, what they are ‘trying’ to do, how they would like the work to be read or be received and what are the influences and the broader context of the artists interest and their ‘back story’.

Leave the meaning to history and the public. In the short term, the art critic, the social commentator, the curator or the philosopher and the historian, all need to earn a living. Artists should leave them something to do.

This is not to say that once the work is ‘out there’ the artist has no responsibility, or that the artists intentions are irrelevant. Even though you cannot control meaning neither should you relinquish responsibility for the work.