In Battle 1967

Curator: Before us hangs "In Battle," an acrylic painting by Mort Künstler, completed in 1967. It immediately strikes me with its vibrant chaos. Editor: Yes, that is palpable. I see an intersection of color and compositional tension – the earthy browns and greens punctuated by bursts of motion, seemingly poised for explosion from the pictorial frame. There is something compelling about how form and absence, and the activated surface generates movement throughout the canvas. Curator: What I find significant are the deeper cultural narratives embedded within this representation of warfare. Note how Künstler depicts both the American and Vietnamese soldiers—each with their own uniforms or lack thereof—acting as ciphers of larger ideological conflicts. The upward dynamic that these soldiers present, moving upwards and onwards evokes courage, but also perhaps desperation. Editor: Absolutely, though from a structural perspective, observe how Künstler deploys the line and color to destabilize any clear sense of spatial hierarchy. The figures seem to be positioned and then re-positioned and seem disjointed. This disruption arguably serves to emphasize the sense of panic or unpredictability in battle, the composition refuses any stable focal point. Curator: It echoes a deeper symbolism regarding America's engagement in Vietnam – the cross-cultural tensions symbolized by differing military equipment or attires that speaks to psychological disruption and moral questions associated with that war. Also, fire as both warmth and destruction permeates as symbol of constant duality in the background, creating contrast. Editor: And note the modernist sensibility evident here in Künstler's apparent interest in disrupting formal expectation to heighten emotive response through form, brushstroke and activated surfaces. There's an anxiety visualized within a limited chromatic scope. It avoids high formalism perhaps with symbolic association through genre-based historical approach in painting but also transcends toward something else too… something that the painting perhaps doesn’t intend but suggests anyway. Curator: Indeed, and as we consider these elements – form, figure, and symbol together – “In Battle” operates less as a historical record and more as a potent symbolic space, encapsulating the wider scope war, tension and a world embroiled. Editor: Yes, an evocative canvas where cultural motifs meet a distinctive painterly method.