What is the meaning of an artwork?

Is this a serious question? Are you really want to know the “meaning”? Are you prepared to carry the weight of that?

Many artists and art critics recommend not even ask this question because it’s a way of confessing your ignorance about art and life in general but is it a valid question at all? I think so, the problem is how to ask it.

First, has an artwork a meaning? I mean is it try to communicate an idea? Well, a teacher in college one day told me: “everything communicates”, he was my teacher of Semiotics the study of signs, symbols. Even when you don’t want to communicate you are communicating. Yellow trees and leaves on the pavement are communicating that the winter is coming, vapor getting out of the kettle it’s a sign that the water is boiling and artworks also have external signs that allow us to interpret them, they’re communicating all the time so it’s better to pay attention on the details.

Next time you’re going to a gallery or museum look at a painting and check how it’s made, what are the materials and then ask yourself why the artist chose those materials, then look at the figures or at the lack of figures, check the colors or the lack of colors, Check the size because, in this case, size matters and I don’t mean if it’s big it’s should be better, you should ask why the artist wanted this size in particular.

When I make an artwork every part matters, the size, the materials, the theme: If I chose ballpoint pens as a technique it’s because I want to say something with this, I’m making a statement, it can be because ballpoint pens are the most democratic writing instrument, because it’s accessible, because everybody can have it and in consequence everybody can do art, that’s a message even when I’m not talking about what it’s in the art itself.

So, next time you’re in front of a work of art don’t ask for a meaning, try to find it. Describe the painting, and then imagine what the artist was doing and why. Probably you’re not going to get it close of the artist’s intention but you’re going to start looking art in different ways, you’re going to stop saying “My 10-year-old son can do that” and surely you’re not going to ask again What does it mean?