Tanned Hide 

Curator: Tsuneo Tamagami's mixed media print, titled "Tanned Hide," really jumps out with its monochrome abstract composition. What’s your initial reaction? Editor: A visceral one. It’s immediately unsettling, almost claustrophobic. The density of the black and grey creates this overwhelming sensation of weight, of something pressing down. It evokes questions about labor and confinement, how oppressive forces can be imprinted on us. Curator: Absolutely, and considering it’s a print—a potentially reproducible medium—the deliberate act of layering different graphic elements becomes crucial. The lines, blots, and geometric forms tell us about artistic choices. Is it about the hide itself, the object, and how the artist treated the raw material to obtain their aim? Editor: That title, "Tanned Hide," becomes very suggestive then. Tanning is such a loaded, brutal process of refinement. What is being refined here, who is performing it? Are we looking at a metaphor for forced adaptation and imposed assimilation? Curator: Could be. And observe how these shapes aren’t clean or perfect. You can clearly see the layering. In examining these intentional ruptures of forms, aren't we seeing the very act of its creation laid bare, its means of production visible? This print questions how meaning is fabricated in artistic practice. Editor: The intentional, raw aesthetic really draws me into issues around authenticity and the politics of representation. In what ways might it symbolize damaged ecologies? Does it address power dynamics between the exploited, whether that's the hide stripped from an animal or other disenfranchised group that gets turned into a commodity? Curator: Precisely! We see a disruption of artistic tradition by the artist in technique. We consider then the cultural implication. In thinking of the materiality we ask what does it signify, especially as Tamagami works with recognizable signs of artistic craft? Editor: Well, now I see it speaking more eloquently to both the vulnerability of our ecosystem and to the hidden violence embedded in everyday things, in practices that are veiled by apparent functionality. Curator: Fascinating how this print then, isn’t just about aesthetics but rather challenges us to grapple with themes of labor, fabrication, and hidden structures of power. Editor: Exactly, "Tanned Hide" challenges us to look beyond surfaces and question the stories behind things we so often take for granted.