ABSTRACT
Interpretation is such a convivial concept. It welcomes with gracious hospitality all of its old and familiar friends, those quiet and unobtrusive meaning-making routines that run in the background of our lives, that involve little effort or thought, that tell us that this is beautiful, this is grotesque, this is a sculpture—and this is how we should think about art. Familiarity lends interpretation a certain mature ease, a quiet conventionality produced through tradition and repetition; interpretation knows how to make sense of things, how to “figure things out.” This familiarity is the “wise side” of interpretation.
