Untitled 1967

Curator: Well, this artwork has certainly thrown me for a loop. It’s called “Untitled” by Antonio Palolo, done in ink in 1967. Editor: It's like peering into someone's subconscious! My first impression is pure disorientation, a kind of playful yet unsettling chaos. The geometric forms seem to float without gravity against those stark vertical stripes. Curator: Exactly! Palolo, during this period, was really grappling with geometric abstraction, pushing the boundaries of space and form. The meticulous detail within each shape contrasts sharply with the overall sense of unease. Those stripes almost flatten the picture plane. Editor: True, and the floating boxes. It challenges our perception, doesn’t it? Like, are we inside something or outside? I find it fascinating how the mechanical and the organic intersect. Notice that small square inset. Curator: Absolutely. It feels like a dreamscape rendered with precision, or maybe even a blueprint for a world that's just slightly off. Palolo plays with perspective masterfully here, especially when you consider his formal engagement with postwar Modernism, he subverts traditional expectations. Editor: It's interesting you say that! Perhaps he is building this dreamscape on modern foundations and is trying to subvert the traditional interpretation with these subtle geometric subversions. All that's very of-the-moment for Palolo, in Lisbon in '67, a politically volatile time. Does his abstraction signal a refusal? Curator: Potentially, as Palolo created his own space and visual language during a fraught time in his native country. And, yet there’s a cool restraint about it as though even the subconscious must be kept neat and tidy. Editor: Indeed. I will leave pondering all of that for a little bit more while looking into its stripped back geometries and considering its politics. Curator: Agreed. Thanks for opening my eyes further into Palolo's view!