14013 („Hier zeig ich Dir …“) 1931

Editor: So, this is "14013 ("Hier zeig ich Dir …")" by John Elsas, created in 1931. It's a mixed-media piece – ink, gouache, collage – a very peculiar combination! There's something almost unsettling about it. What strikes you when you look at this drawing? Curator: Ah, yes, unsettling is a good word! I see a visual poem, a delicate dance between geometry and the human figure, alluding to fortune-telling, like the inscription at the bottom suggests, in German, that says "Here I'll show you something about the future". I wonder: what happens if we read people from their faces? Editor: The lines within the triangle are incredibly precise. Do you think that's part of the message, some sense of structured fate? Curator: Perhaps. I think of early 20th-century anxieties, the search for order in a rapidly changing world. This meticulousness is combined with childlike lines. It's interesting how Elsas merges a geometric style with a whimsical feel, and German inscriptions, suggesting the cultural turmoil that later brought Elsas to leave the country. Did he really know the future? And if so, did he also try to know his own? Editor: That adds a whole layer of context that I completely missed. Seeing it as a response to anxiety makes a lot of sense. Curator: And perhaps also a hidden protest? Or maybe just…an observation. It makes me think about the thin line between fate and choice, especially in times of uncertainty. And a more playful angle: doesn't it kind of remind you of the Magic Eye pictures from the 90s, where you needed to blur your vision to get to the deeper message? Editor: That’s a very strange but appropriate image, haha! I'm going to be pondering that tension between structure and randomness, and the childlike approach to the future from now on! Curator: I will look with greater care in the intentions of an author with my own eyes. Art, in its core, is never finished: our own existence shapes what we see and how we see it!