Ansigtsskitse i profil, samt skitser af abe og abens hoved 1900 - 1905

Curator: Here we have "Face Sketch in Profile, as well as Sketches of a Monkey and the Monkey's Head" by Niels Larsen Stevns, dating from around 1900-1905. It's a pencil drawing on paper. Editor: There's something hauntingly beautiful about unfinished sketches. The fragile lines seem to whisper stories, don't you think? Curator: Absolutely! And the juxtaposition of the human profile with the monkey sketches sparks a really intriguing dialogue. Is Stevns suggesting a connection, a mirroring perhaps? Editor: Or a hierarchy being examined? Consider the period, the scientific explorations that reinforced social Darwinism...were animals seen as lower beings? Is there some sense of him thinking about hierarchies of power between humans and animals, the ways in which they mirror each other but in what ways that gives certain actors the ability to make power claims. Curator: That's a fascinating layer to consider. But there’s also an undeniable gentleness in these lines, a tenderness in how he observes both the human and animal subjects. I sense a curiosity, rather than judgment. I find myself drawn to the fluidity and confidence, capturing their essence with a minimal number of strokes. Editor: Confidence, perhaps... but also erasure. Stevns could also be indicating in what ways the ability to define one group (people of colour as closer to primates, or of enslaved populations as 'beasts of burden' and thereby justifying racist, exploitative systems. It is just a sketch but what are the larger implications, what context might it be engaging, and does it confirm social categories that already pre-existed or does it subvert them in anyway? Curator: Ah, so, by depicting them together and similarly he interrogates social categories as well! See, and here I thought that Stevns, by including the monkey, it speaks to the fascination with natural history prevalent at the time, but I love the tensions that arise. This tension—that dance between observing and imposing values onto our observations – seems really timeless. Editor: Exactly, that friction between how art captures, and how it judges – hopefully leads us all to reflect and perhaps revise!