MAYBE WE SHOULD LAY WHERE THE LIGHTS ARE LOW 

Curator: Let's discuss "MAYBE WE SHOULD LAY WHERE THE LIGHTS ARE LOW," a drawing by Soey Milk executed in ink. It appears to be a study of a reclining figure. Editor: My initial feeling is one of vulnerability. There’s a stillness, an exposed quality heightened by the delicate line work, and also some suggestion of eroticism or an underlying feminine mystique. Curator: Absolutely. The nude figure, coupled with the suggestive title, does create a distinct intimacy. But let's also consider how such images are situated historically. The female nude, traditionally viewed through a male gaze, here, might subvert that perspective. Could it be a self-possessed exploration of female form and sexuality, created from a uniquely female standpoint? Editor: Interesting, I like this thought. But on first encountering it, what also comes to mind are institutional roles: What sort of context would have empowered a young artist like Milk to feel authorized to produce a portrait that is more vulnerable than empowered? Or a study, perhaps, for what will later emerge as an oil portrait of celebrity. I mean the question in a sense that what, politically, is happening in culture for it to emerge in precisely that moment. And furthermore: Which audiences see it. Is it ever shown beyond the commercial galleries and spaces where an image of eroticized passivity could have easily been consumed in other moments throughout art history? Curator: Precisely. It is important to situate Soey Milk's drawing not only within the Western art historical lineage of the nude, with figures like those of Ingres or Manet but also within the specific socio-political moment in which the artwork was produced and consumed, and whose aesthetic choices and cultural filters shape how that image registers. Who does that vulnerable figure represent in 2023 and which historical precedents inform its potential meanings. Editor: Agreed. The interplay between fragility, visibility, the suggestion of vulnerability, the line work, and its place in contemporary dialogues on identity and power...it's potent and not fully settled. It leaves us questioning both the image and the structures surrounding it. Curator: It is exactly those productive questions it raises that stay with me.