Dead: A celebration of mortality

Thought provoking exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery looking at how contemporary artists have dealt with the subject of death.

The first room looked at representations of dead bodies. I found these the most disturbing images in the show. One sculpture was of a body crushed by books and I ended up discussing in too much detail whether they were real books with a fellow librarian friend I went round with. I’m afraid the pile of bodies in rubbish sculpture in the corner was just too real for me and I couldn’t spend much time in the room.

I had seen many of the exhibits in other exhibitions at the Saatchi Gallery such as the bog person and the photos of Russian graves stones with elaborate etchings of photographs on them with the person’s possessions.

I quite like the effect of the levitating Madame Blavatsky by Goshka Macuga in the photo I’ve attacked and David Falconer’s “Vermin Death Stack”, a pile of dead mice. All in all it was interesting to see a group of work on particular topic brought together and this was a stimulating topic to choose.

Review
Evening Standard


 

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