Jeffery Smart

At the height of the Cold War—a period of tense rivalry between the United States of America, the Soviet Union and their allies from 1946 to 1991—radars and satellites allowed countries to spy on each other in increasingly sophisticated ways. This technology also played a part in the Space Race of the mid-1950s when the United States and the Soviet Union competed to launch spacecraft, probes and satellites into space. The radar dishes and control towers in Smart’s paintings suggest the transmission and reception of surveillance signals. The male figure in The listeners turns his head towards a radar dish and listens intently. In turn, the distant radar dish is also listening.