Exploring Context in Art: Putting Interpretation Under a Microscope

[Keeping my thoughts on this to blog post length has been difficult. I hope that it will serve as a platform for discussion.] 

I recently heard a radio program about artist Charles Krafft, considered one of the pre-eminent artists in the Northwestern United States. He has created Nazi imagery for some time and this work has been considered by art historians and collectors to be "ironic." According to a recently broken news account, Krafft has recently been found to be a Nazi sympathizer and the art world has been turned on its head trying to find a way to handle this scandal.

In the interest of full disclosure as related to this story, I will say that my grandparents escaped from the Holocaust and I have strong feelings regarding "Holocaust deniers." I will also announce my ignorance by saying that I had never before heard of this artist. I have always had a strong interest in the fine arts and with an undergraduate degree in art history, I even once considered a career path as an art historian. However, the subject of interpretation, especially considering contemporary art, has been something I have struggled with for a long time. This case highlights that struggle. It shows how much "interpretation" is based on the "facts" as we know them or as they are presented to us. How much do we really ever know?

To me, Charles Krafft's ideas about his own work shouldn't be the determining factor in deciding if his is art worth viewing. It seems to me that this is part of the problem here. My husband and I discussed this in the car after we heard the radio program. He seemed to think that this new found knowledge about the artist's views of the Holocaust should change our view of his work, whereas I think that this new knowledge should give us new information about the work, but shouldn't fully change it. Krafft's art went for shock value, but is he really talented? Search for images of his work and see what you really think without applying any of Krafft's suggested context to the pieces. [Even with the context I have trouble appreciating this work. It is certainly kitsch and I think combining kitsch with political statements has been way overdone...but perhaps that's just me. After all, I didn't become an art historian. My professor laughed at me for my apparently naive criticisms of many modern movements.]

Hearing this story as an archivist got me thinking about Hilary Jenkinson versus Theodore Schellenberg. Jenkinson believed that the creator of a collection of records was the one who should determine the value of the materials -- who should decide what should be kept as part of the historical record -- and that the archivist was merely a caretaker, whereas Schellenberg's theories promoted the idea that an archivist has an essential role in selecting materials worth keeping. I began to wonder, what role does a curator play? Perhaps this is unfair, maybe our professions shouldn't be compared in this way, but it is something that I have wondered for a long time...is it the role of the curator of contemporary art to listen to the creator of an artwork in order to care for it appropriately or should the curator evaluate the work on its own merit without the input of the creator? Do we know something is "ironic" because the artist says it is or do we know it's ironic because it's good art that somehow conveys the irony even without the artist pointedly telling us?

How does one's belief affect context? How should the artist's view of the world change our perception of his work? Is it possible for a curator to give context to art without the artist's input? If it's not, how much artist input is necessary? It seems to me that there was a bit of discussion about Krafft's world beliefs even before this story "broke." How far can, and should, a curator research to fully understand the context of what they are seeing. If we can, and do, evaluate context with older works of art -- by more objectively understanding the artist's life based on diverse archival documents and research materials -- why can't we do it with today's artist?

Once again, as always, it seems to me that archives have an important role to play in establishing context. I think we are at an important stage in our exploration of material culture. This case further demonstrates the value of cross-professional collaboration. The art historian cannot work in a vacuum with other art historians. Their work spans across disciplines. The Krafft dilemma sheds light on our times. It is a time when professionals are well-aware of the value of creating an image, a public face, in order to promote the work that they do. It is a time of complicated beliefs, polarizing opinions, multi-faceted interpretations of culture. Don't take what one tells you at face value. Dig deeper to fully explore context and be aware that what seems to be true may not always be so. How does one determine when context has been fully explored? I'd love to learn if others had alternate views of Krafft's work. I hope more diverse past interpretations of the art come to light and the story continues. I think we all have a lot more to learn here...

Flawed Stories and Diverse Perspectives Part II of II

This is fortuitous - A post on the archives listserv yesterday relates directly to my blog topic for today:

Don’t researchers have every right to create their own context [for the records they are viewing], and don’t they have the right for whatever context they create to be completely wrong? Aren't "flawed interpretations" the bread and butter of freedom? If researchers don't have a right to make “flawed interpretations,” do they really have any rights at all? Don’t researchers have a right to be wrong?

And when researchers are wrong (even, perhaps especially, when researchers are knowingly, deliberately, intentionally wrong), don’t archivists have an obligation to “butt out,” not correct them, not interfere, and let researchers make their own mistakes? At a fundamental level, isn’t the issue of whether a researcher draws "flawed" or "correct" conclusions from the archival record absolutely none of the archivist’s business, and wouldn’t it be profoundly unethical for an archivist to make it his business?...

Last week I talked about flawed stories based on missing documentation. As an example of a "flawed story" I discussed the differing memories that my mother and I have about a jewelry box she once owned. We have no photograph or contemporary record of the object, we only have different ideas about how it looked. This week, I will discuss diverse perspectives reflected in documents and how they lead to better interpretation. A flawed story results from lack of documentation or results from misinterpretation about the evidence before us.

A flawed story is not the result of logical and diverse thinking. Different people glean diverse information from the materials before them based on differing backgrounds. One can have a differing perspective about some materials, valuing a different aspect of something or taking away different lessons from it. A flawed story can result when we take our perspective and pervert it so that excludes other's points of view. A flawed story also results from a lack of knowledge about a topic that leads to misinterpretation. It can also develop because of inaccurate documentation. Other times, flawed stories develop from intentional efforts to deceive others.

"[An archivist aims to keep documentation that] preserves ideas for all facets of society and forms a documentary record that considers multiple strata of people and activities." [From Cultural Heritage Collaborators: A Manual for Community Documentation.] Archivists value diverse points of view and opinions. We seek materials that reflect multi-dimensional ideas so that others can come to informed conclusions based on a preponderance of historical documents. The more diverse perspectives we have about different events, the more accurate stories can be created based on the documents for which we care.  Multiple, truthful points of view presented in our archives lead researchers on a trail toward veracity.

Not all interpretations or perspectives based on accurate evidence are correct. We may even come to a conclusion based on senseless biases that taint our point of view despite the evidence before us. The Archives listserv post raises an interesting question. What role do archivists have in making sure that flawed stories don't result from the archives in our possession? I would add, what role do other record holders have in revealing "truth"? "Evidence" about history sits in archives repositories. It also sits in people's attics and basements. Our views about history sometimes change when new documents are uncovered that provide a diverse perspective. Who decides what is right and what is wrong? Sometimes it is painfully obvious, but is it an archivist's job to correct? I would argue that it is our job as archivists [or "citizen archivists"] to help provide more evidence and perhaps more diversity in the records that are available so that better conclusions might be drawn. It is the professional's role to help collect and provide access to materials that can offer diverse perspectives of the past so that humans can better understand themselves and better plan for the future.

I'll return to my simple example of my mother's jewelry box. Suppose we had a photograph of it, but my mother and I still disagreed on the color. Perhaps the lighting made the image unclear. Perhaps one of us is color-blind. One image cannot resolve our flawed story. However, if we had more images with different lighting or a contemporary diary entry that talked about the color of the box, this might resolve the issue. Or, perhaps we will need to find another account where someone besides my mother and me talk about the color of the box. This alternate perspective gives us a little more evidence about reality.

As I asked in my last post, "Does it matter if our stories are flawed?" It does because the truth and the multiple perspectives it takes to get us to that truth help us better understand who we are, how we relate to others and where we are going as a society. Collecting historical resources and encouraging their use by diverse populations is the only way we can uncover flaws so that society as a whole can correct them.

Cultural Heritage Interpretation - What it means for museums, archives, and our audience

Last week, the subject of "interpretation" came up in conversations with two separate colleagues. When something like that comes up more than once in a week, I take it as a sign to write about it. The first conversation was with a professional grounded in the museum field who asked me about interpretation and archivists. The second was a fundraising / non-profit professional who was accompanying me to a local art museum.

According to the American Association of Museums:
Interpretation is "The media and activities through which a museum carries out its mission and educational role.  Interpretation is a dynamic process of communication between the museum and the audience. It is the means by which the museum delivers its content.  Interpretation includes but is not limited to exhibits, tours, classes, school programs, publications, and Web sites."


Archivists apparently do not like this word "interpretation." We do not want to influence the users interaction with the primary documents that are devoted to truth. We are pledged to retain their purity. To some, perhaps, to suggest that we "interpret" archives as professionals goes against this pledge. To me "interpretation" is vital to all cultural heritage professionals. I don't want to write much about this because I don't want to steal my colleague's thunder. He is going somewhere with his ideas on interpretation. Let me just say that I think archivists are very much involved with "interpretation," but it primarily lies in our "description" when we create finding aids to provide access to materials and place them in context. Archivists also need to be more involved with outreach and exhibits to make what we do more approachable to outsiders and this is a topic that needs to be accepted and further explored by my colleagues.

I am going to digress a bit so you understand from where my thinking comes...As an undergraduate, I was on a curator path. I was an art history major who took all the museums studies coursework they would allow me. I was the first undergraduate to curate an exhibit at the University of New Hampshire Art Gallery. My mentor found that I kept gravitating toward the research rather than toward the art work. My show about the German Weimar photographers Gerta Peterich, Lotte Jacobi, and Ursula Wolff Schneider was heavy in label copy about the context of their work and the environment in which they practiced their craft. Watching me spend much time in the archives, my mentor suggested that I pursue a degree in the discipline. I agreed, thinking that it would strengthen my background in research (i.e. interpretation.) I could then go on to be a curator. I liked archives so much that I stayed and made a career out of it.

Last Friday, I went with my second aforementioned colleague to visit a local art museum. "Description" was very much on my mind. I was impressed with brochures that were made readily available by this museum. They placed various sections of their displayed collections in context. I was impressed with the activities they left around to engage children with imagery. I was less than impressed with much of their label copy. I began wondering about the concept of "interpretation" - its purpose and our jobs as cultural heritage professionals in applying it.

I am going to use one example of label copy at the local art museum that concerned me. It gave the usual name of the painter, dates, etc., but no other information. I noticed that on the painting itself was the artist's name and it said that the work was a copy of a work by another artist. However, according to the label the image was of the artist who copied the picture. This could lead one to think that it was a straight-up self-portrait. In the image, the sitter held a palette and paintbrushes. From my background in art history, I deduced that the subject was the student of the original painter. The master painted her portrait and she copied it. Her paintbrushes were a dead give away to me as a symbol of her own status as a painter. Would a regular museum-goer pick all of that up? To me, that scenario is interesting enough to point out to the viewer. Thinking about the face upon which I gazed, I could picture myself in the studio with her and her mentor. To me, the people depicted in the painting came more to life when I deduced the circumstances of its creation.

Cultural heritage professionals have tools for interpretation that others do not have. We use our knowledge and expertise to figure out things that are not apparent to everyone. It is part of our job to point out connections between pieces of information. We might guide our audiences to come to their own conclusions, but without our interpretation tools, most would not be able to make educated conclusions about the resources in our care. Call it "interpretation." Call it "description." Call "it" whatever you want.  It is part of what makes us professionals. Interpretation is vital for making cultural heritage institutions vital to general society. Without it, our patrons sometimes do not know what to make of the objects in our care or even what to make of our institutions themselves. Curators and archivists should challenge themselves to interpret and to do it well. It is key to making a direct connection with potential audiences that include researchers, visitors, and supporters. It is vital for opening doors to help that audience understanding of the resources we automatically cherish.  Share what you know, welcome curiosity, and engage your public.