Opponents, Audiences, Constituencies, and Community by Edward Said - Response

Opponents, Audiences, Constituencies, and Community by Edward Said - Response

Quote:

“…we need to think about breaking out of the disciplinary ghettos in which as intellectuals we have been confined, to reopen the blocked social processes ceding objective representation (hence power) of the world to a small coterie of experts and their clients, to consider that the audience for literacy is not a closed circle of three thousand professional critics but the community of human beings living in society, and to regard social reality in a secular rather than a mystical mode, despite all the protestations about realism and objectivity” (Said 1087).

Response:

The thing that stood out most to me in this reading was the notion Edward Said brought up about confinement in the interpretation of the art world.  Art, including writing, images, and three-dimensional forms are incredible means of communication and storytelling - so to speak.  Art is made for society when it is found in museums and the open world; it should not, in that respect, be closed off to interpretation for everyone other than a closed group of “professional” critics.  Other members of society can come to their own conclusions about what they see and how they perceive artworks, and anything else for that matter.  It should not, therefore, be an exclusive group of people who have the “end all, be all” statements about art.  I think that we, as a whole, are getting closer to making art more “open-source” so to speak.  However, that solution can become a tricky situation too.  There is a fine line regarding interpretation of works in the art world;  if everyone is making their own interpretations, then the voice of the author/artists can sometimes be overshadowed.  The question of interpretation of art should not be taken lightly; of course it can and should be open for more interpretation out of the professional critics realm, but not open enough to make it incredibly open-source.

Questions:

1. How can the politics of interpretation be closed off to such a small group of people?  Interpretation is open to everyone; not just the well educated and ones who’s voices are more prominent.  
2. Again, referring to the closed off group of interpreters, does it not seem that it puts a great deal of stress on aspiring artists and learners?  How much more rich would the art world be with more open interpretation to art?
3. “One must refuse to believe, however, that the comforts of specialized habits can be so seductive as to keep us all in our assigned places” (Said 1088).  Does that not seem difficult to achieve when there are secular groups of thought and that recurring theme of closed off interpretation of art?