Untitled (couple in room with mounted horns on walls) 1955

Curator: This is an untitled image by Jack Gould, a black and white photograph of a couple in a room adorned with mounted horns. Editor: It's a little eerie, wouldn't you say? Those horns looming over everything, like trophies of… what, domesticity? Curator: Well, the image size is relatively small, about 4 by 5 inches, suggesting a personal or documentary impulse rather than a grand statement. I'm drawn to the textures – the curtains, the rug, the very grain of the photographic paper. It speaks of a specific time, a particular mode of living. Editor: And of hunting, presumably? Or at least, a display of acquired power. I wonder about the labor involved in obtaining and mounting those horns. What does it say about the values placed on the natural world? Curator: Perhaps it's a reflection on the contrasts within that world – the wild and the tamed, the hunter and the hunted, all contained within the comfortable confines of a living room. It certainly makes you question the quiet normalcy of it all. Editor: Indeed. It leaves one pondering the stories behind those silent walls.