Fruit Bowl with Bottle 1914

Editor: So, here we have Juan Gris's "Fruit Bowl with Bottle" from 1914, an oil painting. It's Cubist, and the geometry is striking. It makes me wonder what's behind Gris's fragmentation and how it changes our reading of these familiar objects. What do you see when you look at this piece? Curator: The fractured forms interest me. I notice the tabletop's checkered pattern and the way it interacts with the woodgrain background. Consider the labour: both in depicting wood, stone and fabric and in making real examples of such furniture and other material comforts of early 20th century Parisian life. How do Gris's material choices – oil paint, canvas – reflect or challenge our expectations of art versus craft, high versus low? Does the presence of printed newspaper fragments shift the focus from fine art object to a commonplace commodity? Editor: That's a fascinating point. It is interesting to notice how it looks so “handmade,” and even with that checkered pattern it doesn't have a feel of high end luxury. Curator: Exactly. Gris’s painting acknowledges its own material construction, and those of the surrounding world, disrupting our focus on illusory representation of these daily commodities. What impact do you think the limited palette of browns, greys and whites has on our experience, considering color's relationship with dye production and manufacture of various goods? Editor: The muted palette does keep the focus on the shapes. Now I’m looking at this newspaper fragment at the bottom left. What do you think it signifies in the composition and materiality of the piece? Curator: Perhaps a grounding in the everyday, a reminder of the context and labor involved in creating everything depicted? It ties the production of art to that of information itself. Editor: That’s given me a whole new way of thinking about Cubism! Seeing it not just as fragmented forms, but also in a larger sense of economic exchanges. Curator: Indeed! By questioning our separation of art, labour and life, we appreciate the material conditions that allow artmaking itself.