So I don’t really think it’s an “either or” kind of thing. Death of the author has its value and in many ways it’s just an inevitability because when you put your artwork out there you have very limited control over how that is seen. But understanding that fact doesn’t change the reality that the artist more likely than not created that work with a specific vision, generally speaking an artist doesn’t make work with a “oh well it means whatever you think it means” as that would be considered an especially lazy approach and would likely be cause for their work to be dismissed.

If you treat death of the author as a sort of inevitable aspect of art it’s a good useful thing to be aware of, but if you treat it as an approach to intentionally advocate for you can start to run into some problems. For example, death of the author came out at around the same time that the wider art world started becoming much more accepting of artists who weren’t strictly white straight males. You had artists from diverse walks of life who hadn’t previously had representation now making art and telling their stories… and being told that “oh well your identity doesn’t matter art should be more just good art” and it was kinda bs.

So you might be thinking “well sure, what about all the artists who make very general abstract work?” And id say it’s no different, you might be surprised to learn that even most abstract artists approach their work with very specific political and social and ideological angles to their work even if it doesn’t seem like it. There are of course exceptions, but it’s still more likely that those abstract artists have a very specific perspective they’re coming from and trying to convey.