Pelican 1956

Curator: Let's turn our attention to this vibrant painting by Rudolf Láng, titled "Pelican." It was created in 1956 using oil paint. Editor: My first impression is how unsettling this work is. There's something vulnerable in the subject. It almost feels unfinished in its application of color and the background is very moody. Curator: Interesting observation. I think it important to understand how expressionism often seeks to convey subjective emotions rather than objective reality. Looking back to the mid-1950s, the painting appears as a figuration of social realities, when art took on new significance in response to a transformed geopolitical landscape of increasing division and uncertainty after World War II. What do you make of this through the artist’s rendering of a pink pelican? Editor: The artist has captured something beyond the mere physical likeness of a bird, hasn’t he? It evokes a specific kind of animal vulnerability. Pelicans occupy a peculiar place in our visual lexicon. Because of the species’ large beak and throat pouch they have long been used as symbolic devices for sacrifice in western culture. Considering the time and possible influences from abstract expressionism that emphasized conveying a wide range of emotion and subject matter, is the artist drawing a link between the pelican, an animal that consumes its catch whole, with humanity’s destructive appetite? Curator: That is a compelling interpretation. When we think of this Pelican in the context of other symbolic presentations of the pelican across popular art, literature, and social consciousness in 1950’s, we might consider broader intersectional questions about gendered labor, cultural imperialism, and anthropocentric exploitation to consider the work in its broader artistic and social narrative. Editor: Thank you, that enriches my reading of the painting. Curator: Agreed. Thinking of this artwork through our different viewpoints reveals some new ways of approaching these mid-century themes.