Untitled (Abstract) 1937

Editor: This is an untitled abstract pen and ink sketch by Louis Schanker from 1937. It feels almost like a coded message. What images jump out at you and what do you make of the various geometric and more organic forms, Professor? Curator: The jumble of images evokes for me the sensory overload of modern life, particularly urban existence. Notice how "New York" is emblazoned but almost illegibly...a ghost of a name. What memories, what associations do places hold for us? Do they remain static or do they also evolve like people and culture, and how can we ever hope to freeze frame meaning. Editor: That's interesting - I was seeing disconnected objects - a guitar, some kind of landscape elements perhaps but you're giving them much greater resonance, beyond the purely formal. Curator: Symbols always act on multiple registers - the conscious and the subconscious. The way the guitar is fragmented, for instance; is that a deconstruction of harmony? A lament for something lost? And these playful '23s and squiggles....what's concealed versus revealed by abstraction, what gets added through simplification, what happens to identity when it can’t find purchase? Editor: So much to think about beyond just *seeing* something - it's about connecting images to broader narratives. Curator: Precisely. How do symbols mutate, adapt and sometimes become emptied out over time? An image acts like cultural DNA passed down, but often in strange and surprising ways. Editor: Thank you! This reframing offers a great tool to better consider all forms and cultural forms that carry historical or socio-psychological meaning beyond the aesthetic appeal.