I walk into a warehouse; it is my job to collect several items. I encounter a staff member; he seems only relatively busy and an equal part receptive anyway. I introduce myself and politely state the reasons for my approaching him. Unaffectedly, he reviews my paper work, nods, and I follow him to the office. He retrieves my items.
This is the kind of human encounter that nourishes my soul. Two strangers who may possibly lead two fundamentally different lives are forced to interact by way of a simple task neither is particularly compelled by but are obligated to perform. They will quite possibly never see each other again: the pragmatic kindness is arresting.
I think I can make certain comments about a specific work but it is what it is in some dumb romantic sense. Where I begin to attribute meaning is in a consideration of my process; that somehow the only necessary meaning in my life as an artist is in allegorizing my activity. And the manifested tension between any literal implication is made dynamic by metaphorical interpretation is an analogy. Thus it is simply the practice of living that is at stake in an artwork.
However, as a viewer, when I walk into a gallery I require a work to acknowledge me. I need the work to be aware of itself as an object acknowledging me. I need the work to understand enough of itself and why its there and be able to clearly communicate that aspect of itself to me. I also need the work to be outside of my mental habits. I want to see decisions I would have never considered and I want to see that they are incommensurate logically with the piece but are perfect. I need to be challenged and entertained.