Specialized reading of works of art is important. But how do you understand the work without meaning
The form is already a kind of meaning. The concept of form as relations between the parts and the Kantian form of space-time are examples of how the deep concept of form has to do with giving order to the world and that order is always linked to some kind of meaning. Modern and contemporary art are just emphasize that shaping the world is a social agreement and not an objective truth, therefore they focus on analyzing, deconstructing and visualizing our mediations as relative truths built by consensus and enable another kind of meanings.
How do you mean "understand the work without meaning"? I'm not sure it's possible to read a work of art while eliminating/neglecting meaning. Understanding is always concerned with meaning-making, as I see it. Do you mean challenges related to reading e.g. an abstract art piece where meaning is less a given than in a figurative work? In such works the form (e.g. in abstract expressionism like Jackson Pollock's art...the colours, shapes, textures, patterns) would be meaningful in itself.
Birgitta Haga Gripsrud
Abstractism means exclusion of reality. Therefore, critics have defined it as an objective art. Cash reading will only be a guess. I apologize for the flaw in my English .. because I use digital translation
Dear Ahmed, now I understand the translation issue! I would argue, like Napoleón, that abstract art represents just another form of reality (non-representational, non-figurative): colours, patterns, sequences, rhythms, textures, layers, energies, etc. And I don't subscribe to any art being objective. If there is a mind behind the art, it is always situated in or related to a person.
My dear Birgitta Haga Gripsrud I respect your point of view .. and your expression .. Peace and appreciation.
Arguably, one could say that meanings don't reside in an artwork itself but in the captions that apply to it and the history of captionings of artworks held to be similar to it. That is in fact the nominalist position Nelson Goodman takes in his book Languages of Art, which is highly recommended. (One can bracket off the more difficult parts without shortchanging the nominalist theme.)