Nature Morte: Contemporary Still Life

Fascinating exhibition at the Guildhall Art Gallery looking at how contemporary artists use still life,  showing the work alongside historic works.

The show takes the premise that still life is often looking at death and metaphors for death and is themed around this. There were some wonderful pieces. I loved Saara Ekstrom’s speeded up video of a rotting cup of tea which ran both forwards and backwards. I could have stood and watched is for ages. Jim Skull’s skulls should also get a mention and I particularly liked the one shown here in rainbow colours.

I liked Clare Twoomey’s unfired clay flowers made in Stoke on Trend, so beautiful and fragile. I also like Nancy Fouts’ taxidermy rabbit head with its ears in curlers! Cammie Toloui’s photographs of discarded Christmas trees were rather fun as were Yaken Teruya’s tiny sculptures made of cut outs of bank notes.

The highlight though was the video installation by Ori Gerhst of an exploding vase of flowers. It starts off looking like a Dutch still life then slowly explodes and descends in pieces. I’ve seen this before and think it’s a wonderful art historical response.

Closes on 2 April 2018.

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