Chamber Music Group 1939

Curator: Let’s turn our attention to Joseph Wolins' “Chamber Music Group,” an ink and charcoal drawing completed in 1939. What strikes you first about this work? Editor: The energy—it feels like a spontaneous eruption of sound. There's a nervous, almost frenetic quality to the figures. Is that solely down to his expressive mark-making? Curator: Certainly, Wolins uses visible strokes to animate the composition. Note the layering of charcoal and ink washes, the strong contrast, the overall sense of volume. It is the tonality that achieves such arresting presence through a constant interplay of positive and negative shapes. Editor: But the subjects themselves – their vacant expressions. Is it merely coincidence, that we see them caught during the prelude to World War Two? The intensity you point to, but now viewed through this lens of impending violence, could be seen as a group coping with, or even oblivious to, social upheaval. Curator: I see what you mean, but wouldn’t it be rather reductive to constrain a discussion about such intricate work within a simple historical frame? Let's think about it less as an interpretation and more as a… performance of pictorial syntax. How would we interpret Wolins' disruption of perspective and flattening of space without invoking principles like structuralism or deconstruction? Editor: Maybe we can entertain both possibilities – artistic intention and its contextual reading? This ensemble seems trapped—confined not just within the frame but by the very act of creation during times of anxiety. They represent the anxiety of creation as well. Curator: Perhaps… there’s undeniably a potency to that idea. Editor: I see, and maybe it enriches your understanding of form, line, shape, to now think how each one relates, symbolizes. I'm still seeing anxiety; however, I also see defiance. Curator: Alright, alright, point taken. I can now appreciate your reading! In closing, viewing a work as complex and masterful as “Chamber Music Group” leaves one filled with the power of potential realities, both on the picture plane, and just beyond. Editor: Definitely. Thank you, Wolins, for prompting these conversations around social discord, cultural awareness and resistance.