Sheerazade, A Thousand and One Nights 

Editor: So, this piece is entitled "Sheerazade, A Thousand and One Nights" by Erte. The gold background just makes those jewel tones pop. What’s your take on this lavish depiction? Curator: For me, Erte’s Sheherazade is a dazzling whisper of art deco's infatuation with the Orient, a dream dreamt in sequins and turbans. It’s a reflection, perhaps, of a yearning for an exotic, unknowable "elsewhere," wouldn’t you say? All those flowing lines seem like the embodiment of tales unfolding. How does the figure speak to you, visually? Editor: Visually, it’s pure theatre! I mean, the costume alone could launch a thousand productions. It makes me think of those elaborate Ziegfeld Follies sets. It seems to want to evoke both fantasy and this high end elegance. Curator: Exactly! Think about those Roaring Twenties and the hunger for escapism. Erte gives us a potent dose with this piece. Notice the stylization, the way the figure becomes almost part of the ornamentation itself? It's almost a visual cocktail. Is there a sense that this exotic subject matter flattens out actual Arab culture and tradition to become, say, westernized? Editor: That’s interesting… it definitely feels like a Western gaze, filtering the "Orient" through an Art Deco lens. So maybe it tells us as much about the 1920s Western perspective as it does about the subject itself. I’m going to rethink Orientalism and fantasy going forward. Curator: Precisely. And maybe we ought to rename it! Think of this conversation as being like Scheherazade herself – and then use our artistic, storytelling, or intellectual strategies to ensure our continued survival. This dialogue, this piece…both about art and survival.