Untitled (man with baby chimp) c. 1950

Curator: The first thing that strikes me is how luminous it appears, almost like a dream caught on film, despite it being a negative. Editor: This work by Jack Gould, simply titled "Untitled (man with baby chimp)," really highlights the labor involved in traditional photography. It’s not just the moment captured, but the chemical processes. Curator: Exactly! You can almost feel the artist in the darkroom, coaxing the image to life. There's a tenderness between the man and the chimp; it feels so intimate. Editor: And the intimacy extends to the medium itself. Notice the “Kodak Safety Film” imprint along the border. It is a direct reminder of the industrial element involved in image production. Curator: It makes you wonder about their story, doesn't it? The man, the chimp... what were they to each other? It's like a little window into another world. Editor: It's a window framed by the very materials that made its creation possible. We are so used to thinking about art and nature as somehow separate, but here, the divide is wonderfully blurred. Curator: I love how it holds those contradictions, that human and animal closeness, but also the distance of a manufactured image. Editor: Exactly, the work as object, not just image.