Untitled (Chains) c. 1939

Curator: This etching by Reuben Kadish, simply titled "Untitled (Chains)," was created around 1939, a turbulent time on the world stage. Editor: It strikes me immediately as unsettling. There's a sense of confinement, not just from the figures that appear to be trapped or bound, but also from the dense layering and stark contrasts of black and white. Curator: Indeed. Kadish uses those chains not just as literal restraints, but also as powerful symbols. Think about what chains represent: oppression, enslavement, a lack of freedom – things that resonated deeply during the rise of totalitarian regimes in the pre-war years. The recurring figures are also telling – those spectral bodies seem trapped between dimensions of existence. Editor: Looking at the work through the lens of materiality, the graphic quality is achieved via laborious process of etching. The way the plate bites create these contrasting textures is significant – almost as if the materiality reinforces the violent imagery and dark psychology present here. There's a weight, a literal pressing-down felt throughout. And how was that labor organized? Curator: That’s interesting, isn’t it? The dense line work, the heavy shading... these build to an atmosphere of dread. But the images themselves contain older, more universal references too – figures reminiscent of those in mythological art, and a suggestion that such power can also be internal, self-imposed. There's a complex interplay between individual and collective experience, of both psychological states and real political contexts. Editor: Perhaps that duality explains its enduring resonance. The tension between freedom and control plays out across many social registers even today. It seems a very intentional aesthetic and political project made concrete through its production, too. The chain imagery becomes that of process in tandem to the aesthetic project here – something that can and is physically worked. Curator: Agreed. Its lasting impact, for me, resides in the powerful distillation of a period rife with global uncertainty, fear, and hope. Editor: For me, it brings me back to the production of such pieces during fraught political moments - how and by whom that material translation took place is what makes this artwork continue to stay with me.