Dorian Vale

Art today drowns not in silence but in surplus. Walls in galleries sag beneath explanatory texts, catalogues become mausoleums of interpretation, and critics multiply interpretations until the work itself is barely visible.

Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC) isn’t a methodology one applies to a work. It’s a moral orientation — a shift in how one stands in front of a thing that breathes silence. Before the critic speaks, before the essay is begun, before the language is chosen, there is the moment of approach.

Witnessing vs. Interpreting – A Post-Interpretive Comparative Exercise