Attacking the Stockade 1972

Editor: We’re looking at “Attacking the Stockade,” an oil painting by Mort Künstler from 1972. There's so much going on, it's both chaotic and very staged. It feels… unresolved. What jumps out at you? Curator: It's fascinating how the artist utilizes very potent and confrontational symbolism. Consider the fallen soldier displayed upside down. What could that signify, beyond just his defeat? Editor: Humiliation? Complete loss of control? Curator: Perhaps. Consider that historically, inverted images are used to symbolize the subversion of order, the disruption of power. And notice the stockade itself. Editor: It’s made of sharpened bamboo… with tin cans attached? What's the deal with those cans? Curator: Ah, those are a key piece of visual rhetoric. In many cultures, particularly in areas subjected to colonization, repurposed objects often carry layered meaning. Here, a discarded container, potentially introduced by colonizers, becomes a defensive tool, almost mocking its original purpose. It’s a striking depiction of resistance using the colonizer's discards. Editor: So the figures aren't just resisting, but reframing the symbols of power against those wielding it. That’s incredibly powerful. Curator: Indeed. Künstler is not just painting a scene of battle. He is meticulously assembling potent symbols to tap into deeper historical and cultural narratives. Are they successful in that attack, do you think? Editor: It seems too caught in time to be judged, a perpetual image of what once was but now transformed through those symbolic manipulations we talked about. Thanks. Curator: And thank you; it seems that artists really do shape how we interpret those narratives.