Decoy c. 1939

Curator: Here we have Rocco Navigato's "Decoy," created around 1939, a lovely watercolor and charcoal drawing. Editor: Well, it's surprisingly serene, isn't it? Given the title, I expected something harsher, maybe more suggestive of actual hunting. But this is so...quiet. Curator: That's interesting. How does the decoy, as an object embedded in often violent colonialist and capitalist endeavors, speak to these aesthetic values? It seems rather sanitized, divorced from its original function. Editor: Right? It feels less like a tool for deception and more like a contemplative study of form. Look at the way the light catches the "wood grain"—it’s all rendered so lovingly with charcoal, even though we know it's an artificial construct. You could say, maybe, it reflects a sort of disconnect—almost a sentimental gaze upon a lost or idealized relationship with nature. Curator: I agree, it brings to mind contemporary conversations around the politics of display. Presenting it divorced from its context, stripping its capacity for material action through the means of its commodification as 'art' in an institution. This gesture then speaks to much wider historical issues concerning land, labour, race, and natural resources. It even prompts considerations about who and what gets framed, rendered visible, given a voice, and ultimately, what remains unseen or unheard. Editor: Absolutely. And, strangely, by portraying artifice so skillfully, isn't Navigato pointing towards its artificiality in other parts of culture, politics and society as a whole? He's saying—wait a minute! Can we really believe anything we are told about the world? Or that we perceive? Maybe there's a question mark where we once thought there was a period. Curator: You've got a point. This rendering reminds us that even nature can be manipulated, commodified, and transformed into a representation of itself for specific economic or political goals. I am compelled to read this watercolor and charcoal piece as a meditation on exploitation. Editor: Well, it makes me consider those uncanny spaces between nature and art, purpose and pretense... Makes me wonder what else has been presented as real or inevitable and ask "At what cost?" Curator: Precisely. "Decoy," in its deceptive simplicity, poses complex questions about authenticity, agency, and the gaze.