In MMSI exhibition, where the example of the work of contemporary artists studied this traditional genre of allegorical still life Vanitas

MMSI, November 14 - December 9, 2012
Moscow, Tverskoy Boulevard, 9

Moscow Museum of Modern Art exhibition «Vanitas. Meanings and symbols in the works of contemporary European artists ».

members:

Lit Haring and Martin van Karlsbek - installation, sculpture

Hans Op de Bakey - Video Advanced Placement, picture

Margrit Smyulders - photo

Richard Kuyper - photo

Erwin Olaf - photo

Beech yes Freeze - sculpture

Persin Brursen & Margit Lukas - video art

For several centuries, still life served as a backdrop for formal portraits, scenes depicting scenes from the lives of saints and heroes of antiquity. He finally took shape as a distinct genre of painting only in the works of the Dutch and Flemish painters of the XVII century. The items shown in the still lifes of this period, the center of which was a composite image of a human skull with a hidden allegory of the transience of all earthly things and the inevitability of death. These works were named vanitas ( Vanitas ).

• RICHARD Kuyper Egg
  Source: mmoma.ru
• Margrit SMYULDERS
  Eat me, drink me. 2007
  Source: mmoma.ru

Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas. From the book of Ecclesiastes: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity» (vanitas, Lat. Letters . - «Vanity"). For the first time, this expression is found in the Latin translation of the Bible, its authorship attributed to King Solomon.

Vanitas - picturesque genre allegorical still life, the center of which was a composite image of a human skull. Jewelry, cups, flowers and still lifes luxuries in vanitas fade or portrayed casually in the disorder that devalues ​​earthly achievement and well-being. All these things just remind the impermanence of life, fleeting pleasures and fleeting beauty. Grim allegory and flowers that depicted on the reverse of Vanitas paintings with attributes of death, are the earliest examples of still life (nature morte) in European art of XVI-XVII century, the genre was born and first gained popularity in the Netherlands and Flanders, and later in France and Italy.

• Hans Op de Baker Sea of ​​Tranquility. 2010
  still from the video.
  Source: mmoma.ru
• Persina BRURSEN & Magro LUKASH
  Still from video
  Source: mmoma.ru

With the spread of the Baroque Vanitas still life became more and more life-affirming and lush. XVII century artists stopped a skull in the center of the composition and more tactfully turned it into the story, and eventually was abandoned altogether, so still life independent from the religious morality of the world painting genre.

Curators Cabina Orujov and Larissa Byuvalda offer a modern interpretation of the classic genre. Nowadays, artists use the same characters as the Dutch painters XVI - XVII centuries, but taking them for the actual language.

And still today Vanitas theme, not the objects depicted by the authors and foreboding meditation on the transience of earthly goods, warning of perishability of life, anxiety, and the inevitability of death.

Expressive abstract sculptures feasts and lush flowers - typical still-life subjects of contemporary European artists, again appeal us to think about the transience of all earthly and human dependence on the time and the grace of nature.

Source : mmoma.ru