Initially when I visited an art gallery, I would find myself "lost in translation." For some reason, I felt that I needed to understand a piece the same way everyone else understood it. Why? I'm not sure other than the whole gallery crawl was new to me and I wanted to feel intellectual about art description/interpretation.
I soon realized that there can be many interpretations for all art forms. A formal translation isn't necessary - unless of course the artist is standing near by. Translation is similar to how we learn in school. We read the similar books in English class and the teacher "translates" and we move on. Is there an opportunity to define for ourselves? I don't think so. That's why translating art can be a powerful thing. It offers everyone a chance to interpret as an individual. At the end of day, you can always to the library or ask an expert but the journey is lost without first taking your own path through the translation process.
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2 comments:
I actually think that while art may or may not need a translator, not every "conversation' in the language of art has to be for everyone. That's certainly true of regular conversations! Some conversations I'd rather not be part of, or jsut don't have an opinion on. Likewise some art is not for me. That could be because I'm not understanding in come cases, but I think it's ok not to be into a specific piece or group of art while still being interested in art in general.
I like to think that art is universal in the sense that everyone, and I really mean everyone, has an innate need to concretize (put into external form) some "marker" or expressive evidence of inner stirrings, ideas, reactions to the world, and that these things are "art" or their equivalent. It does not matter if the person has had training or technique, or has achieved in expert status in "one of the arts" because that is a matter for the market system of the arts to worry about (will it sell?) On the level of human existence, the lived-experience level, though, that sort of thing does not matter much. What matters is the expressive impulse and the permission to channel it outward in a way that shares with others.
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