Blank 1846

Editor: We’re looking at "Blank," an 1846 drawing on paper by Johan Thomas Lundbye, housed at the SMK. The drawing is… well, blank. Two pages of a sketchbook, maybe? What strikes you when you look at this, and how do you interpret such a seemingly simple image? Curator: It is tempting to simply consider its blankness a statement of nothingness. However, to read this drawing solely through an aesthetic lens would be to ignore its historical and social context. This "Blank" drawing, created during a period of intense social and political change, is by no means void of meaning. Consider the power dynamics inherent in naming an artwork "Blank," almost as if a colonial encounter where an object is being identified as 'undiscovered.' Does this emptiness become a space for projection, inviting the viewer to confront their own assumptions and biases? Editor: So, are you suggesting the very act of labeling it ‘Blank’ is the intervention? Curator: Precisely. Think about how definitions, especially official ones, can control narratives and impose hierarchies. Lundbye, even unconsciously, may be commenting on this. What is absent *becomes* present by the virtue of our focus and attempts to understand it. It invites us to fill this blank with our own understanding, our lived experiences. Editor: That’s a very different way of looking at it! I’d assumed the artist just didn’t finish it, but thinking about it as a social commentary… changes everything. Curator: It is imperative we consider the socio-political climate within which the work was made. We can see Lundbye as questioning how societies, or even individuals, construct meanings and erase certain histories or voices. Hopefully, this dialogue will inspire our audience to critically engage with art beyond just surface appearances.