Black Man and Blue Horizon 

Curator: Let’s take a look at Jules Schmalzigaug’s drawing, "Black Man and Blue Horizon". It’s rendered in pastel and watercolor, offering a unique blend of media to examine. Editor: Immediately, I'm struck by its melancholic mood. The muted colors, the abstracted figures… It feels like a memory fading at the edges. Curator: Indeed, the application of pastel and watercolor creates a dreamlike quality. Note how the city backdrop is hinted at, just a suggested row of shapes and then individual figures towards the middle to the right in blue. What could that have meant in Schmalzigaug’s era of making and to current modes of artistic productions? Editor: The color palette definitely evokes a sense of isolation. And look at how the figure in the foreground is almost dissolving into the background! Is the city scene reflecting or weighing down the man in front? Is this simply the record of some flaneur's walk, in the urban culture as much as within the context of art? Curator: It raises questions about the individual’s place within an urban landscape. Schmalzigaug often depicted the dynamism of modern life, and we need to think of it when the date of making the artwork remains unavailable to fully contextualize production process, choices of technique. How would the consumption or access to such techniques alter how art got produced in comparison to contemporary works? Editor: Absolutely, it highlights the alienation that can exist within a bustling cityscape, though maybe not the same ways as now given how materiality gets employed now compared to how the drawing was made, potentially decades ago. But it makes me consider, also, the power of suggestion and the limits of any formal reading; for this composition invites one to interpret. Curator: And through such abstraction, the artist invites viewers to reflect on their own experiences within similar settings, and understand materiality's role, and ways they alter processes for creation. Editor: The drawing makes one reflect how the intersection of individual emotion and urban existence plays out, particularly through color and form, regardless of specific dates or concrete production practices. Curator: In its deliberate, almost wistful creation process, “Black Man and Blue Horizon” serves as a thought-provoking statement about our collective experience within society, as recorded through media and through production’s context.