On Sun, 21 Aug 1994 18:59:55 EDT, Peter Samis wrote:
 
>For myself, I feel there is an important difference between interpretation
>and contextualization.  The latter is not so unlike some of those early
>labels on cabinets that situated an object in space and time, but goes a few
>steps further in making that place and time real to us again--and this is
>where digital technologies can be helpful.  It frames the work in an
>educated, informed context of creation.  It does not give a single,
>authoritative "spin" that overdetermines what it "means" and replaces direct
>experience by the viewer.  Rather, it ideally sends the viewer back to
>re-encounter the object, with new ways of connecting to its mysteries.
> Interpretation, at its worst, is the "master narrative" that quashes inquiry
>and replaces direct experience with a definitive verbal equivalent delivered
>with great weight and authority.
>
>As for Maurice D. Smith's observation that "In a gallery the art often
>imparts its own message as opposed to museums where we place three
>dimensional artifacts and re-contextualize them after they have been removed
>from their natural environment," this is an opinion that some of us in art
>museums have come to question over time.  Modern and contemporary artworks
>are, for many visitors, just as de-contextualized as works from a foreign or
>ancient culture.  (Would that it were not so!)  The "white cube" approach to
>modern gallery design ensures that )  So, we in art museums must tread the line
 between
>invading the sacrosanct gallery space where the art encounter takes place and
>giving enough contextual back-up so that the uninitiated can go back in and
>feel something other than frustration in the presence of the work.
 
As you acknowledge, there is a problem here -- actually several:  For one
thing, there are no border guards on the frontier between
contextualization and interpretation; secondly, different visitors have
different needs, and what one finds helpful, another finds intrusive,
still another would find bewildering.  Most fundamentally, however, to
CHOOSE, at any level, is to interpret, inescapably.  When you delineate a
subject -- or story, to use my favorite word -- you are interpreting,
that is, you are selecting what to say and what not to say and imposing
order, sequence, and causation where they may or may not be inherent;
how can we know?  Moreover, when you select a medium -- exhibit, video,
living people -- or some combination of media, you are imposing the
rules, conventions, and limitations of that medium on the material; this
is not a crime -- it's just what happens.  And then, when you make
choices within the medium -- design, color, lighting, typeface,
amount, size, and distribution of text, whatever -- you are
interpreting.  Maybe I'm being simpleminded about this, but I submit that
there is no such thing as an interpretation-free context, even if the
context is no-context, such as the white cubes you cite.  I would even
argue that the white cubes are intended precisely to stroke the egos of the
"initiated" by reminding them that they are among the privileged few
who speak "the artist's vocabulary" and that there are "those without
this aesthetic ease [who will often leave feeling befuddled, bewildered,
and bitter, feeling ripped off," saying things like, "My kid could do
that."