For those who missed it, the Hungarian-born NY-based artist Rita Ackermann gave a refreshingly inarticulate lecture at the MOCA  last Saturday. Yes I know, English is not her first language, but I also believe that her body of work said all that needed to be said.

As she clicked on slide after slide, chronicling her body of work — from her early renderings of pubescent nymphets to her later abstracted deconstructions of the same imagery – and offered up suprisingly simple explanations of intent and methodology, it was clear that this artist takes an emotional approach to her work as opposed to an intellectual. And hearing her at least try to articulate this intent offered valuable insight into that kind of artist’s mindset.

Ackermann probably never set out to capture the zeitgeist of NYC’s downtown 90’s scene; it’s more likely she was working from it. Her methods appear more instinctual and unconscious. The work is the sum of the expression and says all that needs to be said, so why bother trying to make the same statement with words?

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Or maybe an orange is just an orange. On the surface an orange may seem simple enough, but John McPhee in his book Oranges filled 152 pages with information about the rich history and significance of the fruit.

Not to say that McPhee was exaggerating the importance of an orange, far from it. Ackermann’s intent may have been more humble than the critical ramifications placed on her work about gender-identity or whatever else, but it doesn’t mean that these interpretations are false. In the end, the artist’s intent is almost irrelevant, and it’s up to the rest of the world to extrapolate a work’s meaning and importance. For instance, Helter Skelter will probably always be associated more with Manson than with McCartney.

Museum of Contemporary Art: 770 NE 125 St, North Miami; 305-93-6211; mocanomi.org