Southern Section of Piazza (James Butler) 1972

Editor: This drawing, "Southern Section of Piazza" by David Gentleman, captures a quiet, almost desolate scene. The architecture feels monumental, but there's also this sense of emptiness. What do you see in this piece? Curator: I see a questioning of urban spaces and their relationship to power. The architectural style, the starkness of the piazza, it speaks to a history of imposed order. Who benefits from this kind of grand design, and who is excluded or marginalized by it? Editor: That's a really interesting point. I hadn't thought about it in terms of exclusion. Curator: Consider the title—"Southern Section." It's a fragment, suggesting a larger, perhaps inaccessible, whole. Whose gaze are we adopting here, and what are we not seeing? Editor: I'm definitely going to look at cityscapes differently now! Curator: Art invites us to interrogate these spaces, to consider their social implications beyond the surface.