<<We need to be careful about giving much weight to authorial intent.>>
I'm not all that worried. So much of this seems a word game to me. From my view (as an artist, not a philosopher or sociologist) you have "intent" (the meaning intended) and then you have all the other meanings that accrue to a work--all those meanings that are attached to a work.
Credibility isn't a big deal to me either. In my own work I find that there are different layers that I talk about. In the recent Waves project I can talk about the physical colors and how they emerged from the simple, almost trivial process. People respond well to that sort of discussion. I can also talk about it's connection to the Equivalents (but that leaves the average person confused). I can also talk about the Thatcher illusion and it relation to the work, which appeals to certain other people. I can talk about the relation of this work to thinking like that which led to the SFMOMA "Is Photography Over" conference. I can talk about other aspects of the work, other approaches to "get into" it and each are valid, and yet I've never really talk about the core of the whole thing. Not an evasion so much as a conviction that I've I've done my job well that core is impossible to talk about intelligently as it is visual in nature. It is a visual medium, after all, not just photographs illustrating theoretical constructs!
Stieglitz's differing versions of the Equivalents? Not surprising in the least. He spent many years on this--made something well over 200 pictures. His version of what he was doing and why no doubt changed over that time, no doubt he was working out the ideas out loud in real-time, trying them out on people. An artist is both the creator of a work (with the intended meaning) and a viewer of the work (with the accrued meaning). It's a mess to figure out. Stielglitz is unusual in that he is really famous and that this process was recorded to a degree.
I'm perfectly happy with authorial intent, even if it changes over time, even if it isn't that clear to the artist in the first place. Even if they are liars. I think intent is avery different beast than what comes next, the thoughts of strangers to the work, even if they are expert in the field. No one will ever know my work like I do. I'm too busy producing the work to leave a detailed history of it--all those words! I think most god artists are the same.
The meaning an author intends in a work and the meaning others place upon a work are not different points on the same spectrum. They are different things altogether. It's like being a lowly foot soldier in a great battle versus being a historian of that battle. They are both deeply interested in the battle. Their lives are dedicated to that same battle but in ways so different as to defy any common categorization.
--Darin
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