An audience outside the Kasbah Gate, Tangiers 

Alfred Dehodencq painted "An audience outside the Kasbah Gate, Tangiers" using oil paints. The painting is full of life, but also holds within it the realities of labor and class. Think about the materials: oil paint, canvas, brushes. These were commodities, circulated through a globalized economy. The artist relied on the labor of others to produce the materials to then depict the scene, so that it would eventually circulate as a luxury item, to be collected and displayed. But the artist is not the only one working here, this scene depicts many. The labor of those who built the Kasbah Gate, those who made the clothing, the implied labor to keep society running. By thinking of all the works that went into this painting we can see the intersections of materiality, making, and broader social and economic contexts. Looking closely at the painting we can move beyond the surface to a deeper understanding of its layers of meaning.