Walking into the MoMA, one is already filled with the assumption that what is featured throughout the building will be art. Berger writes that, “The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe” (8). As a result, even exhibits that would otherwise seem like just everyday objects were viewed through a critical lens. According to Berger, this means that many learnt assumptions about art such as those concerning beauty, truth, genius, civilization, form, status, and taste come into play. One exhibit from the Dada movement was a shovel that hung from the ceiling. If it had not been in a museum, a shovel would be all it was seen as but, because it was in the MoMA, it was art. With this label of being art by Marcel Duchamp, the shovel suddenly gained all the assumptions that come with the label.

Barnet writes that, in order to get to the meaning of a work, one must interpret “the subject matter, the material and form, the sociohistoric context, and perhaps the artist’s intentions” (55). First the work itself must be analyzed. What details does the artist intentionally place for the the viewer to interpret? The colors, title, and artist all lend to the larger picture of the meaning of the work. Then the time of its conception and the circumstances in which it were made add on to its image, and may even change some original assumptions. These kinds of background information allow the viewer to see what movement was going on at the time and create some kind of individual interpretation of the work. Barnet’s writing encourages the reader to question everything there is about the piece of art in order to fully appreciate and interpret it.

A single work of art has multiple interpretations. There is the intended meaning given by the artist, and then there are the assumed meanings given by audiences from different places and times. Once the time period or movement of the artwork is seen, the viewer may even try to create meaning by viewing the piece from the standpoint of when it was created. Berger additionally writes that different meaning is created in the viewing of authentic works of art as well as the presence of reproductions of a work. The point that is made is that there are many ways to analyze a work of art as well as many factors, personal and otherwise, that will play into how it is analyzed. The accumulation of all this becomes a unique interpretation for each person.