Newel Figure c. 1939

Curator: What a piece! Right away, I’m seeing some serious architectural daydream vibes. This Newel Figure from around 1939, rendered in graphite and charcoal…it's just calling to something fantastical in me, y'know? Editor: It's more than fantasy, I think. The artist, Milton Grubstein, captures in striking detail an ornamental sculpture, likely from a staircase newel post. Its placement—or more accurately, the lack thereof—reveals how architecture often signifies status and power. The mythical creature acts as a guardian figure; are we entering or are we being kept out? Curator: Ooh, I like that reading! I get this sense that this winged… gargoyle-ish dude… is bursting with a repressed energy, about to pounce off the page, despite being stone-cold stationary. I bet the contrast of hard edges with the subtle gradients created through shading is central to that tension. Editor: Absolutely. Think about the moment this was made. It was a period marked by rising global tensions—and the intersection of figuration, as evidenced by the anthropomorphic qualities, with these rigid, almost brutalist, geometric elements, reflects that. Does this synthesis act as a warning of the seductive allure of authoritarianism, where we must act as gatekeepers against history repeating itself? Curator: Whoa. I didn’t go there at all. But I guess now I can’t unsee it! It also kinda touches on how monsters—especially hybrid creatures—often stand in for marginalized groups, reflections of "the other", right? I keep looping back to the texture, which does double duty. It looks solid but sketched out. Real but an idea. Is there something there too? Editor: The duality resonates with current discourse surrounding the fragility of both democratic values and social identities. By using such commonplace materials Grubstein forces a material discourse regarding these ideas in a context we are not accustomed to having them: everyday life. What sort of questions are generated? Curator: Makes me wanna run up and down a huge staircase, debating power structures and monster theory the whole time. Alright, maybe just imagine doing that. Editor: Exactly, and perhaps by reflecting upon such architectural fixtures we are able to destabilize and challenge ingrained beliefs that affect lived experience in public and private space.