Untitled (chimps playing baseball on a stage) c. 1950

Curator: Looking at this photographic print by Jack Gould, I immediately sense the unsettling nature of the scene. It's titled "Untitled (chimps playing baseball on a stage)." The image size is just over two inches. Editor: The material reality of trained animals on a stage always strikes me as tragic. The visible labor, even obscured by this ghostly negative, speaks volumes. Curator: Absolutely. The chimps in their ill-fitting uniforms, mimicking human behavior, create a sense of unease. There's a strange disconnect, a darkness behind the performance. Editor: And what kind of labor went into producing this image? We see the stage backdrop, crudely painted… the photographic process itself, all these layers of artifice. Curator: It makes you wonder about the nature of spectacle and the cost of entertainment. The chimps are performers, objects of our gaze, stripped of their wildness. Editor: Right, Gould is offering us, maybe unintentionally, a critique of image-making itself, laid bare through the exploitation inherent in the scene. Curator: I think that's right. It's a disturbing image, but a powerful one, in the way it forces us to confront these issues. Editor: It's a stark reminder to consider what's behind the curtain, in more ways than one.