Nose Man 

Editor: Here we have Walter Battiss’s "Nose Man," a mixed-media painting that strikes me as playful, almost like a quirky visual riddle. With its bright colors, abstracted forms, and strange little figure emerging from the larger head, I'm left wondering... what is it all about? How do you interpret this work? Curator: It’s crucial to view Battiss, especially "Nose Man," within the context of South Africa’s art scene, grappling with its identity during and after Apartheid. How might an image like this function as a commentary, even a subtle one, on identity and representation during that period? Editor: I hadn't considered a political reading. I was stuck on the sort of... joyfulness of the palette. Curator: Note how Battiss uses abstraction and figuration simultaneously. He breaks down the figure but still retains its representational form. Doesn't this resonate with larger global movements like Modernism or Pop Art, which challenge conventional academic styles rooted in realism that once visually justified and narrated colonial projects? Editor: Absolutely, the connection to pop art is clear, but I didn't connect the figure to resistance to realism. So, is the ‘nose man’ almost a deconstruction of the conventional, idealized representation of, well, a man? Is that what gives the work its political power? Curator: Precisely. Battiss positions art not as passive reflection, but as an active site where meanings about "man" can be negotiated and destabilized, challenging visual orthodoxies. "Nose Man" isn’t just whimsical; it reflects a time when images, and who controlled them, had profound political weight. What do you make of the location of the 'ear', marked by a question mark? Editor: Fascinating; I initially saw it as a quirky detail but in retrospect, the question mark raises bigger questions about listening, understanding, and who gets to be heard. I'll never look at Battiss the same way again! Curator: Excellent! Considering those questions takes us a little closer to what Battiss and, more broadly, South African art during that period, were asking of their audiences.