Artist Intention vs Viewer Interpretation

106 centimeters long; tiny compared to the overwhelming vastness of his other works.

Lying on his back, in complete rigid inertness, Dead Dad is a portrayal of Muecks own father who died a few months prior to the creation of this sculpture. Evidently, Dead Dad is a personal response to the death of the power figure in his life, his father, but his intentions run deeper than that. Through the use of manipulations to size and attention to the tiniest detail, he emphasizes the mortality of human life. Unlike his other sculptures, which are all hyper real portrayals of humans animated with life, Dead Dad is the only one that captures the essence of death. The corpse is a metonym for complete exposure and vulnerability, and to some extent this is relayed strongly to the audience. However, the intentions of Ron Mueck within his art may influence responses out of the audience, but may not necessarily dictate it.

For example, if a viewer has had close experiences with death, they are likely to react more strongly to this piece than someone who has had little exposure to it. An individual's race, education, background, experiences and culture will all influence their response to anything presented to them. Following this trend, David Blazquez is also a contemporary artist that creates artworks that are left open to individual interpretation. Born in Spain in 1980, Blazquez creates monochrome photographs of himself, naked, as different items of household furniture. His background in image manipulation is evident in his works, and his series explores the concept of objects, nudity and the self-portrait.

In contrast to Ron Muecks work, Blazquez dehumanizes himself to become inanimate

objects such as a bookshelf, a table, a lamp and a bath, whilst Mueck gives life to cold, still resin sculptures, turning them from objects into animate things. The underlying intention of Blazquez work however, is not to question existence of humanity, but to examine the individual within their environment. As well as this, the personification of everyday objects makes a comment on the commercial, consumerist nature of society. We are defined by what we have, so much so that in these photographs, he IS what he has. His photographs evoke introspection and inquiry into the superficiality of human nature, as well as coordinating the portrait, the nude and the still life in a contemporary photograph. Because of the contemporary, quizzical nature of these photographs, it is only expected that such questions will be posed differently to individual viewers.

Blazques may have outlined his intention when creating these images, but they were designed to evoke emotion and reaction out of his audience, thus handing the ultimate power of interpretation to over to them. Art is made to evoke emotions, questions and memories in the people who view t, as well as projecting the ideas and experiences of the artist themselves. An artist creates with the intention to convey a particular message or theme to the audience, thus predicting their responses and reactions. However, each individual is influenced by their own personal context; their experiences, education, race and background. It is these factors that allow an individual to react differently to how the artist intended, forming their own personalized response.

Therefore, it is through the intention of the artist and their artwork that evokes this personalized response from

the individual, in a cycle of intention and interpretation.

References

1. http://www.elfotomata.com/pages/exposicion/135
2. http://homotography.blogspot.com.au/2009/04/human-furniture-by-david-blazquez.html
3. http://www.edwardwinkleman.com/2009/11/role-of-intent-open-thread.html
4. http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/hot-or-not-huma-82886