Seeing Defeated by Interpretation

Here's a provocative post on Piss Christ. Personally, I've always felt Serrano's infamous photo to be gimmicky, and reading this post, I find this impression strengthened. The title immediately cancels the image and replaces it with discourse. And the artist's original discourse is soon after supplanted by the discourse of other artists, critics, and the public.

I remember once seeing a dance, and then listening afterward to men discuss the feminist allegory of it all. For them the motion of bodies was pretext for discussing their own ideas. I realized then that allegory is as popular now as it was in the 17th century, but the artists no longer name their figures.