When we look at a work of art, sooner or later an astonishingly simple question arises: what does it actually mean?
Art theory, however, has the remarkable ability to invent words for perfectly understandable questions that first require us to look up what the question was in the first place. Two of these are hermeneutics and reception aesthetics. Both deal with how we understand art. And both are highly relevant to my work on CONVIVIUM.
Hermeneutics is concerned with understanding and interpreting a work. It asks about the relationships that create meaning: symbols, composition, historical and cultural references, the period in which the work was created and, where relevant, the artist’s biography. The point is not to excavate a single correct message hidden somewhere inside the work. Understanding emerges through an interplay between the work, its historical context and the person looking at it.
Because the viewer, too, does not arrive before an image as a completely blank slate. We bring knowledge, experiences, expectations and prejudices with us. The latter, of course, are something only other people have. We ourselves usually possess carefully considered opinions.
This is precisely where reception aesthetics becomes interesting. The term originated primarily in literary studies, but it can be applied to the visual arts without too much intellectual contortion. It shifts the focus away from the question of what the artist may have intended and towards what happens in the encounter between a work and its viewer.
Every person brings their own history. Memories, experiences, hopes, fears, knowledge and cultural conditioning all influence the way an image is perceived. The same photograph can therefore evoke completely different thoughts and emotions in two people. One person sees loneliness, another sees tranquillity. One experiences a gesture as vulnerable, another as provocative. The work remains the same. Its effect does not.
That does not mean, however, that every interpretation is automatically equally valid. “Art is subjective” is not a licence for entirely arbitrary claims. Anyone who sees Caravaggio’s Judith as an early advertisement for premium kitchen knives is perfectly free to do so. They should simply not be offended if art history does not unanimously follow them.
A work of art, after all, possesses its own structure. Light, composition, gesture, symbolism, material, historical references and the relationships between individual elements create a framework. An interpretation may expand that framework, challenge it or read it in an unexpected way. But it should at least acknowledge that it exists. Good interpretation therefore arises from a dialogue between work and viewer. It remains open without becoming arbitrary.
Much of modern and contemporary art makes this tension particularly visible. Many works deliberately avoid providing the viewer with a single interpretation complete with operating instructions. This can be stimulating. Occasionally, however, it also serves to accompany a remarkably modest work with a remarkably extensive explanatory text. Apparently, that too belongs among the expressive possibilities of our age.
For my own work, another question is more interesting: what happens when the perception of an image is influenced not only by thoughts and memories, but simultaneously by other sensory impressions?
This is precisely where CONVIVIUM begins.
CONVIVIUM combines artistic photography with fine dining. Each project begins with a shared theme – such as the seven deadly sins or nine forms or kinds of silence. I interpret that theme photographically. A chef develops a multi-course menu around the same theme, independently of my images. The chef is therefore not asked to reproduce a photograph decoratively on a plate. That would be illustration, not an independent interpretation.
Photography and cuisine initially work separately. Both deal with the same idea, but through entirely different means of expression. In photography these are the body, light, shadow, gesture, space and composition. In cuisine they are taste, aroma, temperature, texture and consistency.
Only when they are experienced together do the two works meet.
While looking at a photograph, a guest may taste bitterness, sweetness, acidity or heat. They smell smoke, herbs or roasted aromas, experience soft or firm textures, hear conversations at the table and perceive the atmosphere of the room. The image itself, naturally, does not change. But the way in which it is experienced may.
A bitter taste may suddenly make a photograph appear harsher. Something sweet may add an unexpected layer to an otherwise dark image. A dish may awaken memories, which in turn influence how the photograph is perceived. Or perhaps none of this happens and the guest simply discovers that they cannot stand fennel. That, too, is reception.
CONVIVIUM therefore takes the idea of reception aesthetics into practice and makes it a multisensory experience. Meaning does not emerge solely between image and viewer. Taste, smell, texture, space, conversation and personal memory all act upon that encounter at the same time.
For this reason, CONVIVIUM is neither an exhibition followed by dinner nor a menu accompanied by decorative art. Both forms must be capable of standing on their own. The photograph does not need the dish in order to be art, and the dish does not need the photograph in order to work as cuisine.
The photographer interprets a theme through images. The chef interprets the same theme through taste, aroma and texture. The guest finally brings their own experiences, memories and expectations into the encounter. Only then does something emerge that none of the participants can fully control.
And that is precisely what interests me.
An artist can set the light, position a body, shape a shadow and decide which image will eventually be shown. A chef can select ingredients, set flavours against one another and compose the sequence of a menu. Both can work with great precision.
What another person ultimately feels in response belongs to them only to a limited extent.
Perhaps that is the most interesting insight we can take from hermeneutics and reception aesthetics: a work of art may eventually be finished. Its meaning is not necessarily finished with it.
And perhaps art becomes truly interesting precisely at that point.
Who is more about the project, would like to find the previously created Works, and the underlying concept of the CONVIVIUM page.