Original artwork, not a still
Against Interpretation · 1966
Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even more. It is the revenge of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world – in order to set up a shadow world of “meanings”.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The speaker casts interpretation as an act of aggression: the intellect takes vengeance on art, and beyond that on the world itself. Explaining what something 'means' strips away its living richness, leaving a thinner, ghostly substitute made of concepts. The claim is that hunting for meaning shrinks experience rather than deepening it.
Context reviewed