Audience 1936

Curator: Alfred Bendiner created this ink drawing, a print titled "Audience" in 1936. What are your first impressions? Editor: Chaotic yet organized. It's a frieze of rather comical characters. The composition is linear, almost like figures in a medieval procession, but there's a nervous energy in the linework that gives it a distinctly modern feel. What do you make of them? Curator: The image feels intrinsically tied to the interwar period. The varied attire—almost costumes—bespeaks the anxieties around class and status that festered then. The figures seem simultaneously unified as a "crowd" and fiercely individual. Editor: Notice how Bendiner uses specific details, like the absurd headdresses or the military drum, as almost heraldic emblems? These aren’t just people; they are types. They reflect certain ambitions or anxieties within society at that moment. The column to the left is fascinating. Curator: Absolutely. The column almost sarcastically alludes to stability or a classical foundation, against which this absurd pageant unfolds. Bendiner frequently infused his works with social critique and often took on political topics with irony. This "Audience" feels almost staged, complicit in the performance of power. Editor: Right, and there is also the artist in the audience capturing the unfolding charade! Symbols of creation and recording set among pomp. Bendiner, after all, did train as an architect; is this the beginning of a deconstruction? Curator: Perhaps, the drawing undermines the authority it seems to depict. Given the rise of fascism in Europe during this time, Bendiner's work could be a subtle but cutting commentary on the spectacles orchestrated to cultivate popular support for such regimes. The scale of such social control might well drive him to satire. Editor: Yes, the grotesque caricatures undermine any sense of dignity. Bendiner provides us with symbolic representation to critique political manipulation through these intentionally clownish figures. Curator: Bendiner presents an important record for us today to consider how we too might be considered members of the "Audience", knowingly or not. Editor: I think you're right; this image really sticks with you after time because of its insight into ourselves and others.