Torso 

Curator: This artwork presents a carved torso made of wood by Francisco Serra Andrés. What are your initial thoughts? Editor: The form is powerfully sensual, but at the same time, it projects a strong sense of stoicism. I'm curious about how this kind of imagery impacts viewers today given the constant discourse on objectification. Curator: It's a dialogue central to contemporary theory. Consider how figuration itself has historically been gendered male. What happens when the gaze shifts to the female form, crafted perhaps not as an object of desire, but of internal strength? Editor: Visually, the wood grain is crucial. It almost maps the surface of the body, recalling ancient fertility figures or perhaps wood carvings of goddesses. The interrupted nature of the sculpture invites a question mark—what is it missing? Is it memory itself? Curator: Exactly. By fragmenting the body, perhaps the artist critiques conventional beauty standards, challenging us to engage with form beyond societal impositions and consider its inherent strength as form, period. Editor: Or perhaps it speaks to the ephemerality of life, like the weathered fragments of ancient sculptures we discover. The base also draws my attention; the torso isn’t separate from the material reality— it's firmly placed on a plane hewn from the very same wood. Curator: Absolutely, this contrasts against the artwork being suspended outside time and situates the figure as subject of our reality, raising a mirror to ourselves. There is something that feels raw and vulnerable, that pushes us towards solidarity with this symbolic figure, no matter its imperfection. Editor: Looking closely, the carving seems simultaneously precise and unpolished, as though intentionally incomplete. Perhaps that is where its emotive quality lives; it isn't striving for classical 'perfection'. I find its incompleteness deeply poignant, suggestive of vulnerability and enduring strength coexisting. Curator: The artwork’s tactile texture adds to that. Overall, there’s an opportunity to consider ideas around femininity, representation, and power within this beautifully simple carving. Editor: The artwork lingers in the memory through its use of enduring symbolic gestures; an anonymous every-body created by carving that seems incredibly modern, and very, very old.