Modelstudie 1887

Curator: Ah yes, Niels Skovgaard's "Modelstudie" from 1887. It's a drawing using pencil. The artist clearly worked within an academic art style. What strikes you most about this study? Editor: It feels…unfinished, like a snapshot of the artist’s process. I notice the repetition of the figure. What was Skovgaard trying to capture by repeatedly rendering the human body like this? Curator: Consider the context of art academies at the time. The intense study of the human form, often nude, was integral to artistic training. It was a form of artistic labor. So how does Skovgaard depict the model, and the process of rendering? Is there any social message that it provides, considering Skovgaard depicts labor? Editor: The repeated lines suggest movement and exploration. There's no idealization; it’s just the raw form. The artist wasn't concerned with an ultimate picture; rather, the artistic act of exploring is highlighted. Would you say, that Niels isn’t fetishizing, or sexualizing, but exploring the capacity of bodies in their spatial environments? Curator: Exactly. It foregrounds the material reality of artistic production – the paper, the pencil, the model's time, Skovgaard's intense effort. How might its display in a museum recontextualize or change that process? What becomes "valuable"? Editor: Displaying this shifts the focus. What was once a behind-the-scenes exploration of artistic development has become the product itself. Highlighting Skovgaard's intention wasn't necessarily to highlight or uplift this “draft”. By doing so we shift the consumption of art through that lens. Curator: Precisely! It’s the commodification of the process. This was a method for a mean to achieve a grand painting that was considered valuable back in the academic day. The fact we give worth for “what isn’t” questions the hierarchy and commodification that underpins art! Editor: I never considered the process as having such material weight. I appreciate the new dimension!