We invite artists who cross the threshold of the CNDB Media Library to tell us a few words about the materials they have chosen and to share with us the ideas that stayed with them. Choreographer Andreea Novac chose “The Perfect Spectator”, a book about the way we perceive art.
What happens when a spectator encounters a work of art? How does the viewer understand its “meaning” and how can this process of interpretation, which often takes place at a subconscious level, beyond language, be understood and articulated? These are the questions from which the book chosen by Andreea Novac starts.
Regarding the choice she made, the choreographer told us the following:
Artistic reception was, more or less explicitly, a constant in the works we have proposed so far, as we became aware of the fact that the relationship between the spectator and the artistic product goes beyond the simple act of watching. The verbs used to designate the spectator’s interaction with an artistic product have also changed, moving to participate, to accompany, to experiment, to transform, to intervene, etc.
“The Perfect Spectator” has nothing to do with an ideal spectator, but rather offers ways and tools to understand, lead, mobilize and direct artistic perception and experience, approached from both directions (from stage to audience and vice versa).
Andreea Novac
Author Janneke Wesseling, professor of visual arts at Leiden University in the Netherlands, addresses the relationship between the spectator and the art object by analysing the aesthetics of reception, with the central premise that contemplating art is a matter of interaction between an active work of art and an active observer. Wesseling writes about these things both from a personal position, starting from her own encounters with art objects, and from her professional experience, studying and writing about art. At the meeting between the two perspectives, she arrives at a new theoretical framework for seeing and contemplating art.
Andreea Novac selected some excerpts from “The Perfect Spectator” – ideas that resonated with or remained with her after reading, and shared them with us. You can read them below:
“The artist may not necessarily understand his own art. His perception is neither better nor worse than that of others”. – Sol LeWitt
“There is not a one to one relationship between an artist’s intention and a spectator’s interpretation. (…) It by no means entails the exact transference of knowledge and experience from artist to spectator. (…) The spectator, be she uninformed or well – informed, is asked to disregard her expectations and preconceived ideas about what art is about. Our expectations of the art work stand in the way of experiencing it.”
“Two kinds of spectators: eye and body.”
“The art work is embodied or materialized thinking.”
“The concept of spectatorship that elevates sight above all other senses, a spectatorship of a disembodied subject, is not relevant to postmodern art with its emphasis on a simultaneity of perspectives and experience of the work with the entire body.”
“The art work exists and lives in the contemplation by the spectator and in the ever-changing interpretation. The work’s maker does not know all the possible layers of meaning and interpretation. Had he known them, he would have had no reason for making the work. The art work is not the ultimate goal, not an end product of the artist’s thinking. It is an intermediate stage, a temporary pause, a frozen moment in a thinking process. As soon as the artist has placed the work in the world, his activity concerning that specific work is a thing of the past. At that point, the spectator, the audience becomes involved in the work.”
The book “The Perfect Spectator” is available in the CNDB Media Library. You can access the entire books and videos collection by clicking here. If you are interested in any of the titles, write an email to .
The series of recommendations continues!
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CNDB media library has over 400 books waiting for you to discover them as well as a whole video collection of works, dance films and video art. You will find titles about the history and theory of dance, critical thinking, performance theory, artist books, feminist studies as well as many periodicals, magazines and catalogues of contemporary dance festivals.
