Beast 

Curator: What a creature! I feel it lumbering, slow and ancient. The monochrome is surprisingly violent somehow. What do you make of it? Editor: It's interesting you say that. When I look at Misch Kohn’s print titled "Beast," I think about power dynamics and representations of monstrosity. Curator: Ah, yes. There's a vulnerable kind of power here, though, wouldn’t you say? A sort of majestic…discomfort? Editor: I’d argue that that "discomfort," that feeling of unease you describe, is deeply embedded in the visual vocabulary around monstrosity. How these representations are used to uphold existing power structures and justify acts of violence, control. It almost performs how marginalized groups are so frequently dehumanized. Curator: You know, there's a raw, almost tactile quality to the print. The gestural marks are rough, expressive—it feels so physical. As though he just attacked that plate with ink. I love that. It also hints that these images and systems didn’t come from nowhere… they required an immense effort, planning, strategy. They are built, made concrete, much like the marks here. Editor: Precisely. Kohn's technique of mark-making resonates with how oppressive systems operate. We must consider the process behind dehumanization to truly challenge the structures they support. Curator: What I'm left with is how powerfully that beast embodies its feelings; its very being is inseparable from the form itself, there is an innocence, even a sort of joy in the pure experience of that, divorced from all expectations... that beast feels incredibly liberated. Editor: Liberated, yes, and I suppose the question of from what also sits with me after this conversation. Thanks for that perspective!