Indeterminisme d'un amour 1946

Curator: The somber quality of this mixed-media piece grabs me instantly. It's like peering through fractured memories. Editor: Indeed. We’re looking at “Indeterminisme d'un amour” – “Indeterminacy of Love” – by Gherasim Luca, made in 1946. Luca uses ink and pencil on paper to create a really unsettling portrait. Curator: Unsettling is right! The disrupted architectural backdrop combined with that strangely bandaged figure… there’s something very oppressive about it. The symbol of blindness resonates, culturally representing not just literal sightlessness, but also a deliberate ignoring or lack of awareness. Editor: It's worth noting that this was made in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The architecture, reminiscent of a decaying church, suggests a civilization in ruins, physically and perhaps morally. The bandaged woman could symbolize a Europe willfully blind to the atrocities around her. Curator: I hadn’t considered the figure allegorically. But her bandaged eyes...is it about love being blind, as the title implies, or something more sinister – a deliberate obscuring of truth? Maybe this reflects the psychic splintering after the atrocities of the Holocaust? Luca would later explore trauma more directly through his "Cubomania." Editor: The Cubomania itself could be a reference here, or perhaps is prefigured here! It also prompts a closer look at surrealism’s broader political engagement during this period. While often associated with the irrational and the dreamlike, it was equally capable of engaging directly with pressing social and political realities. It makes one question what it can really say. Curator: It's a powerful juxtaposition – the irrational aesthetics confronting stark reality, highlighting the disorientation of the time. This piece refuses to offer easy answers, the symbols feel purposefully unstable. Editor: Absolutely. It makes you wonder about the very act of seeing and understanding in times of intense upheaval, questioning the accepted norms, and considering their foundations to question any truth. Curator: Agreed. The piece demands that we confront the ambiguities of love, truth, and memory and, importantly, the historical moment from which this vision was formed. Editor: And, ultimately, challenges us to question our own role in constructing those narratives and continuing its symbolism.