Gossip 2021

Editor: Michael Cheval’s "Gossip," painted in 2021 using oil paints, has a distinctive surrealist style that feels unsettling yet playful. What symbols stand out to you in this painting, and how do they inform its message? Curator: The telephone and the costumes immediately leap out. Notice the old-fashioned telephone, transformed into a character delivering news. In many ways, it references language as rumor or discourse, as it carries messages into our current age, but there are also visual references in their dress. Look closely. How might we read them? Editor: Well, their clothing suggests a historical setting, maybe Renaissance? The woman's headpiece seems particularly elaborate. But I don’t see how they fully connect with a modern telephone, though. Curator: Precisely! This connection—the old world whispering into the new—is at the heart of the piece. The figures whisper and suggest the continuous circulation of information. Yet it's the *way* that information is transferred that becomes commentary on the present. It suggests timeless habits and traditions—passed between subjects and updated across time. Editor: That’s fascinating! So, it's not just about the gossip itself, but also about how we transmit it across different periods and using different technologies. Is that what makes this modern commentary about gossip? Curator: Indeed. And don't forget the background with those odd figures within the walls and flora. What's *their* role, would you say? All eyes *and ears* seem to indicate the same purpose for the composition, the same meaning... Editor: To suggest it has an underlying tension or cautionary message to all information exchanges... Hmm. It’s given me a lot to think about. Curator: For me as well! Cheval presents a thought-provoking dialogue on history and modernity in his work. I think this invites all of us to engage in thinking critically about rumor.