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Trained in literature and entrepreneurship, Rainey is the founder of Glasstire, the online magazine of visual art in Texas and the oldest online-only art magazine in the country. In 2019, she stepped down as publisher after over 18 years at the helm.

She is currently editing a book about the Rice Gallery and writing for magazines.

Rainey has spoken or written about arts journalism at Emory University, the USC Annenberg School, the El Paso Museum of Art, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, College Arts Association, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other places. She has also spoken about caregiving at Houston Methodist Hospital. She lives in Houston.

Trained in literature and entrepreneurship, Rainey is the founder of Glasstire, the online magazine of visual art in Texas and the oldest online-only art magazine in the country. In 2019, she stepped down as publisher after over 18 years at the helm.

She is currently editing a book about the Rice Gallery and writing for magazines.

Rainey has spoken or written about arts journalism at Emory University, the USC Annenberg School, the El Paso Museum of Art, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, College Arts Association, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other places. She has also spoken about caregiving at Houston Methodist Hospital. She lives in Houston.

Trained in literature and entrepreneurship, Rainey is the founder of Glasstire, the online magazine of visual art in Texas and the oldest online-only art magazine in the country. In 2019, she stepped down as publisher after over 18 years at the helm.

She is currently editing a book about the Rice Gallery and writing for magazines.

Rainey has spoken or written about arts journalism at Emory University, the USC Annenberg School, the El Paso Museum of Art, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, College Arts Association, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other places. She has also spoken about caregiving at Houston Methodist Hospital. She lives in Houston.

Rainey Knudson

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Rainey Knudson

Oct 22, 20231 min read

Should Art Mean Something? (228 words)

Ed Ruscha, "Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Fire", Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1972.

Jerry Saltz recently wrote the following about Ed Ruscha's iconic painting Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Fire:

[Ruscha] once remarked, perhaps a little slyly, “I didn’t dislike the art museum … I had no grudges.” He went on to say that he “liked the idea of painting architecture” and that “there’s no great message here. It’s just a picture to look at.” This sort of denial of intent is typical of a whole generation of artists who created loaded images and objects, then claimed a totally formal read of the work.

Saltz seems to suggest that artists denying that art has to "mean" something was both a ruse (Ruscha knew perfectly well how inflammatory, ha ha, his painting was) as well as a temporary condition of the post-WWII generation of artists.

Are we back to artists making art that has (or should have) meaning? Was "denial of intent" some kind of Postmodern nihilism, a fleeting conceit in art history? And should we be nervous if art does indeed need to mean something? The most explicitly meaningful art is also the best propaganda.

As an art viewer, the artist's intent usually doesn't matter to me. (This is closely related to needing to separate the art from the artist.) But the art that I love does mean something to me. It's not "just a picture to look at."

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