The Spy 1969

Curator: Looking at us today is "The Spy," a 1969 acrylic on canvas work signed Mort Künstler, though it appears to have also been produced by Emmett Kaye. Editor: Well, that’s immediately unsettling. It looks like something out of a pulp magazine cover. This overt display of voyeurism makes me uncomfortable. Curator: The painting's composition certainly drives that feeling home. We're positioned as the observer, peering through binoculars at a scene of, frankly, blatant exploitation. Editor: Exactly. The blatant male gaze, and the woman completely unaware. What interests me is the narrative layered here; it’s not just the depiction of an unfolding crime. Look at how the composition frames her through this violent situation as the ultimate victim. Is it about danger? About the vulnerability? Curator: Künstler's roots were indeed in illustrating such dramatic pulp narratives. There’s a high level of theatrical staging to the painting. I suspect the work may even depict the artist's vision of how to turn popular narratives into works of art, challenging, as such, high art norms. Editor: The color palette reinforces that tension. The cool tones of the bathroom juxtaposed against the warm tones where danger lurks creates two realities about to collide. And those heavy binoculars become a lens through which power dynamics play out so overtly. Curator: We should remember that, in the era, Künstler and other illustration-based artists were beginning to infiltrate the fine art world, questioning its exclusivity. The work perhaps served as a statement that “low brow” can indeed be turned into “high brow.” Editor: This feels, to me, less about infiltrating "high art" and more a symptom of the entrenched sexism and power structures that persist in both the art world and broader society. Regardless, Künstler, in “The Spy”, presents viewers an experience that demands critique, pushing us to question what it is we are actually observing when we engage with art. Curator: And maybe, in confronting that question, we expose our own complicity. Editor: Precisely. Art as a mirror to our societal shortcomings. Something definitely valuable that should make one consider the narratives they choose to enjoy.