Mark Godfrey, Barnett Newman’s Abstraction Speaker: Mark Godfrey, Lecturer in Art History and Theory at the Slade School of Art. Mark Godfrey considers some ways in which Barnett Newman's art has been interpreted. First, there are those who read it as if it were a code to be deciphered (Thomas Hess). Then there are those who 'see' it, and locate the meaning of the work in the seeing experience (Fried, Judd, Bois, Serra, Sylvester).