Prophet (Detail ) 2015

Editor: We’re looking at "Prophet (Detail )" by Saul Zanolari, from 2015. It looks like digital art, with a figure posed inside a strange architectural space. The lighting and rendering have an unusual smoothness... What can you tell me about this piece? Curator: Considering this digital rendering, I am interested in what is absent. No tactile engagement with the materials and traditional studio labor that might characterize sculpture, for example. This challenges our standard notions of "making" art. How does the virtual manipulation of the figure’s hyper-defined muscles and exaggerated pose, achieved without physical struggle, impact how we value such a piece? Editor: So, you're suggesting the digital creation alters the context in which we understand it? How does that link to it being a "Prophet"? Curator: Precisely. It is intriguing to ponder the work’s context by contrasting the depicted labor against the real processes to create it. Think of traditional artistic creation, in say Michelangelo. Do the choices in fabrication then change or skew how we perceive ideas around masculinity, prophecy, and erotic art, as the tag describes it? The production value here almost replaces… or comments… on classical training or mediums, yes? Editor: Absolutely, it shifts the meaning significantly by changing the traditional ideas and struggles attached to producing such a vision. Curator: Ultimately, how might digital media undermine traditional notions of the "artist," their relationship to material, and the consumption and distribution of this virtual “object”? Editor: It's a provocative thought. Thanks, I'll have to look at contemporary creation through a different lens going forward.