Untitled 

Editor: This is an untitled drawing by Gerda Wegener. I am struck by the contrasting figures: the thin flapper with her guitar and the corpulent man smoking in the chair. There's also a nude on an easel, within a decorated oval frame. It feels subtly satirical. What do you see in this piece? Curator: The frame, the figures... all speak to the artifice of image construction itself. Wegener is, in her time, part of a milieu critiquing bourgeois society even as she gains visibility within it. This is a period fascinated by, and anxious about, shifting gender roles, visibility and display of sexuality, and the art market that turns those subjects into commodities. Editor: The woman *is* presenting the painting, almost selling it. Curator: Exactly. Consider the power dynamics: Who controls the gaze? The artist? The sitter? The presumed patron represented by the smoking man? Wegener cleverly stages these questions. The art nouveau style softens the critique, rendering it palatable for the very audience it skewers. How might we interpret the guitar she's holding? Editor: Perhaps a reference to another form of performance, or display? Something to heighten the scene's overall decadence? Curator: Yes. And remember, Wegener herself challenged conventional roles. Knowing her biography perhaps enriches the reading of power within the scene itself. What new perspective did you get on Wegener? Editor: Thinking about the context of gender roles really clarifies Wegener’s positioning and highlights the complex layers within what I initially saw as a somewhat simple composition.