The Eurocentric gaze that prevails especially in historical and avant-garde works, is once again balanced out in this exhibition by incorporating contemporary positions from different parts of the world: Nomin Bold from Mongolia, Khaled Barakeh from Syria, Danitza Luna and María Galindo from Bolivia, Teresa Margolles from Mexico, Ameh Egwuh from Nigeria, and Alexandre Diop from the African Diaspora.
The exhibition’s poster and key visual features a new artwork by Günter Brus: In a combination of poetry, wit, and philosophical gravitas, it visualizes the fact that death is always among us in the midst of life. Unlike in many other works, the sheet’s titular “Young Death” is not a skeleton.
On closer inspection, the slender figure’s face does have skull-like features; the iconography recalls artistic personifications of death. “Young Death” is part of a new series of about two-and-a-half thousand watercolors that Brus created during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020/21).
Photo (c) eSeL.at - Lorenz Seidler
