Sculptuur van de Lupa Capitolina in de Capitolijnse Musea te Rome, Italië 1851 - 1890

Curator: We're looking at a gelatin-silver print dating from between 1851 and 1890, a photograph of the sculpture "Lupa Capitolina in de Capitolijnse Musea te Rome, Italië"—the Capitoline Wolf. Editor: It has this almost unsettling effect, doesn't it? The sharp, photographic rendering highlights the wolf’s unnatural rigidity. The contrast pulls out a weird sense of aggression but the texture makes the bronze appear almost granular, soft. Curator: Indeed. Note how the photographer frames the subject frontally and the subtle tonal range of the print emphasizes the volumetric form of the sculpture, its surface articulation and symbolic weight. Editor: I’m drawn to the method of duplication itself. We are not only observing a sculpture but we're encountering a photograph, an interpretation that is both mediated and distributed across various contexts. Considering the bronze of the sculpture as an ancient material appropriated for later political symbols, this work offers layered context regarding labor and reception. Curator: It’s tempting to think about its impact. It has been reproduced countless times; this photograph is a rendition of a rendition and acts as an intersection of symbol, object, and material trace, collapsing past and present. The formal qualities, the repetition of the curved shapes, give it a visual cohesiveness. Editor: I agree. Understanding this work demands consideration of labor—from the ancient metalworkers crafting the bronze to those extracting raw materials and making photosensitive gelatin for the prints. And not just labor of humans: Consider the mining of silver necessary for the print’s rendering of this wolf! Curator: I've always been struck by its enduring power and, thinking about that granular surface, a kind of formal resonance across centuries. Editor: A potent, though troubling icon reproduced via layered means of mechanical making. Quite telling, wouldn't you agree?