With the virtual avatar 2019

Curator: This is Siegfried Zademack's oil painting, "With the virtual avatar," created in 2019. It presents us with a rather striking composition. Editor: It does! The muted palette gives it a solemn, almost haunting quality. The figures are positioned as if in a tableau vivant, but there is something deeply unsettling about it. Curator: Absolutely. Let's delve into the material aspects first. The artist uses the traditional medium of oil paint to render a contemporary scene with a surrealist bent. Note how the tangible textures of the brick wall contrast with the smooth skin and wood. He creates a stark duality of surface quality to emphasize an otherworldly narrative. Editor: The formal contrast certainly enhances the mood, I see it! Observe the arrangement of objects and figures—the female nude, a wooden mannequin, tools like scissors and a saw, all interconnected by this electric-blue cable, forming lines that lead the eye in a circle around the artwork. What do you think of that compositional device? Curator: From a materialist point of view, I find the cables very suggestive of global supply chains, literally binding diverse elements, raw materials, labor represented by the nude, automated manufacturing embodied by the mannequin together in webs of production. The tools suggest human intervention and modification, but also perhaps destruction. Editor: Yes, perhaps destruction of outdated notions, maybe of naturalism. It challenges classical nudes and the idealized body in art, juxtaposing it with this inanimate object. And the choice of those very symbolic implements—the cutting power of the scissors and the violence of the saw—could suggest an active engagement. A liberation. Curator: Or maybe the promise of an obsolescence as technology replaces humanity, where everything can be exchanged? Is the mannequin a mere product now ready to be disassembled? Editor: The virtual, as you note, could mean any manufactured reality. Ultimately, it’s up to us, the viewers, to decipher its message by piecing together the visual cues. Curator: By connecting art and commodity cultures we realize art is material for interpretation as much as any manufactured piece. Editor: Precisely. A rather fascinating puzzle that blends form and context seamlessly!