Figuration in the discourses of art: A reception study report

Abstract

This presentation addresses two leitmotifs suggested in the CfP: (1) figuration from body, culture and society and (2) figuration and creativity. In my earlier work I have proposed Multimodal Critical Analysis of the Discourse of Art (MUCADA), which integrates insights from Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, 1999, Dancygier and Sweetser 2014, Forceville 2011, 2013, Kwiatkowska 2013, El Rafaie 2015), Social Semiotics (O’Toole 2011, O’Halloran 2008), and Discourse Historical Analysis (Wodak and Reisigl 2009) in order to represent meaning making processes in the interpretation of 3D artworks (sculptures, installations, assemblages). This model predicts that in the process of constructing the figurative meaning of an artwork art viewers rely on the structural elements of the work of art, as well as various types of contextual knowledge, such as the author’s background, collective memory of a social group, or museum’s profile. Context is here understood as internalized cognitive representation of an individual’s socio-cultural experience (cf. Kovecses 2015). In this study, a systematic analysis conducted by the researcher is compared with the viewers’ interpretations of the artworks. The data has been collected during 27 interviews conducted with 42 visitors of the Tubman Museum in Macon (GA) and High Museum of Art in Atlanta (GA). The results show that personal experience and knowledge, as well as embodied cognition play a crucial role in the interpretation of artworks. Access to more layers of contextual information allows the viewers to narrow down their interpretations. The interpretations based on the embodied experiences of height, weight and object’s materiality are similar across different groups of viewers. Less generic, and more specific interpretations are situated in the socio-cultural experience which differs between viewers and may facilitate the construction of more specific meanings. For example, the artwork “Untitled” by Bessie Harvey, representing a black person carved in a wooden branch, was interpreted by white Americans as an image of pride and passion; African-Americans, on the other hand, beside strength and perseverance, have also decoded the figure as reproducing the “Black Face” stereotype. This feature was less accessible to the interviewed white visitors.

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