Regard multiple 1989

Editor: Enrico Baj's "Regard Multiple," from 1989, is an acrylic painting featuring a rather… unusual portrait. The colors are vivid and the composition is striking, but the figure with multiple eyes is somewhat unsettling. How do you interpret this work? Curator: The "unsettling" quality, as you call it, is precisely what grabs my attention. Consider the socio-political climate of 1989. The Cold War was thawing, but anxieties about surveillance and control were pervasive. Doesn't the multiplication of eyes speak to this sense of being watched, scrutinized from all angles? Baj, with his background in the anti-nuclear movement, often used art to critique power structures. Editor: That's interesting. So the multiple eyes could represent societal surveillance rather than a literal physical attribute? I hadn't considered it in that context. Curator: Exactly! Think about the gaze, who holds power within the gaze. The single eye, traditionally the all-seeing eye of authority. Baj disrupts this by distributing the gaze across multiple subjects, almost democratizing the act of seeing and being seen. How does the artist manipulate conventional aesthetics to push the narrative forward? Editor: Well, it's definitely not a traditional portrait. The figures have exaggerated features, like the vibrant, almost garish, makeup and bold colors, pushing away from idealized representations and more towards something… confrontational? Curator: Precisely. This is a powerful break from tradition and could challenge our traditional roles of how the body functions and exists. Do you think this could connect with feminist concepts of the gaze and reclaiming the female form from a male dominated standard of beauty? Editor: That’s a very insightful question! Maybe Baj is using those exaggerated features to highlight the absurd expectations put on women, but now I have to consider how that ties to Baj as a man. Curator: Context matters. And that context allows a deep understanding of our history to build greater acceptance for diversity, inclusivity, and how people choose to define their existence. Editor: This painting feels a lot less unsettling now that I see all the layers of historical references within the piece!