Both, sorta.

Art is a form of communication. It is up to the author/artist to ensure the message they want to convey is both clear and understood to their target audience.

However, no matter how hard you try there will always be some who don’t interpret it as intended. These typically fall outside of the target audience, but their interpretation is still valid.

If the target audience still misinterprets, their interpretation is valid, but the artist did a poor job communicating their intention. This does not necessarily mean the art is bad though.

I believe the creator determines it and the audience interprets it. Possibly in multiple ways, including some that the artist may have never thought of or intended.

A work can have multiple meanings, even unintended meanings. It can even have no intended meaning.

Its creators define its intended meaning, if any. Valid interpretations can create other meaning from it.

Meaning is subjective and not intrinsic, so there can be no such thing as “the” meaning of anything.

The artist can have an intended meaning, but the audience not only can but will find their own meaning in it. It might be the case that the audience gets the same meaning from it that the creator intended, but it might just as easily be the case that they get some entirely different meaning from it.

None of them are right or wrong - that’s not even a coherent concept in that context. They just are whatever they are.

Relies 100% in the author. It’s the one who says “yeah, it mean this” or “yea, it means what you think it does mean”

Depends.

John Carpenter felt the need to explicitly state that They Live was about yuppie capitalism when the alt right was saying it was about Jews.

In Detroit: Become Human, David Cage didn’t see any parallels between the robots being forced to sit in the back of the bus and African Americans also being forced to do the same.

Then you have people like Kunihiko Ikuhara, who when asked a direct question about the meaning of his work, will give vague answers because he’d rather you figure it out for yourself.

I know you don’t want to hear “it depends,” but there is no one rule that would cover all art. Some art is made to communicate specific ideas. Some art is made simply out of self-expression, without intent for any particular audience. Both are valid.

If I doodle in my notebook, it’s for the artist (me.) However, I also draw and paint to communicate specific emotions. I made a painting while listening to “September” by Earth, Wind and Fire, with the intent to capture the energy and joy the song sends through me. I don’t expect anyone to immediately connect the image with the specific song, but since it’s a lively concert scene, my hope is that the emotion that inspired the art comes across to an audience.

Sometimes I’ll make something more abstract, intentionally left open to interpretation. I may have my own thoughts about such pieces, but ultimately I want the viewer to find their own meaning.

In reality, everything is up to the audience. There will always be people who interpret things in their own way, independent of the artist’s intentions. We can’t control what others will think, but learning to tolerate and/or accept people who “don’t get it” is a stage all artists have to go through. I’ve come to accept that there is no one perfect mode of communication, so if I intend to communicate something specific, it’s on me as the artist to put effort into making that message clear.

Yes.

Both, but ultimately audience is more important since they are more numerous. Also there are works of art we seen with very little context know of their creation.

The viewer, the artist can try as they might to convey a message, but it’s up to the audience to see it

Audience. It doesn’t matter what an artist intends if it is not perceived in that way. It’s up to the creator to make the audience perceive something.