Let me try this again.

You don’t have to do any research to understand Lagomarsino’s work. The plaques and booklets in the gallery are there to tell you what everything means. He tells you, in his own words, what the work means. That is, the author, the authority, provides you with the one and only meaning of the work. You don’t get to bring your own understanding or interpretation to the work. The author is doing all of that for you. And he created an installation that is utterly meaningless until and unless he tells you what it means. The last thing Lagomarsino wants you to do is bring your own interpretation to the work. That would completely undermine what he’s trying to do with it. Central to the artwork is his explanation of what it all means.

Monet speaks to you on multiple levels. His works draw you in, speak to you emotionally, and cause you to want to learn more. Lagomarsino’s work leaves you not needed to know more, because Lagomarsino provided you with all the meaning. All of it. There’s nothing left for you to do. You come, you see, you read, you leave knowing what the one true meaning of the work is. There is no one true meaning of the Monet. You can have endless conversations with people about the Monet. The only conversations that take place about Lagomarsino’s work is whether or not it’s even art, and whether or not you agree with the content of his lecture. I grant it’s art. But it’s the kind of art that has its meaning imposed on you by the artist. That’s what makes it authoritarian — the author provides the one and only true meaning of the work, and doesn’t let you form your own ideas or meaning.