Skulls made of various materials, with different means and many techniques, “tell” stories from the afterlife. Among them and other works, they move in the same pattern and refer to the transience of life, the futility of pleasure and the certainty of death.

This is the report “Vanitas. Stories from beyond”, which opens its doors tonight at MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Collections of the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and the State Museum of Contemporary Art (within TEF), where it will remain for the next three months.

“It’s not a macabre exhibition”

“The exhibition begins with the central axis of the skull, as a timeless symbol, found in all cultures, it has the meaning of the futility of earthly goods, vanity” emphasized, during the journalists’ tour, a few hours before the opening, the art historian and curator of MOMus Yiannis Bolis.

Fifty-six artists, with more than 60 projectspresent their own version and perception around futility, vanity and death itself, sometimes with doses of humor and others in a harsher way, challenging the visitor to reflect on the quintessential existential issue, which still remains particularly popular in contemporary art.

“It is not a pessimistic exhibition, it is not a macabre exhibition, after all, death is the most democratic thing, it refers to everyone, there is an ending, it is an exhibition that more or less makes us reflect on the basic condition of life and death” he pointed out Mr. Bolis.

Vanitas. Stories from beyond

In the works of the exhibition, symbolic elements are combined with visual values, dramatic and macabre content with humor, cruelty with sensitivity, dark dramatic atmosphere with a more bright pop perception and iconography, critical look with subversive mood and references to art history and contemporary reality.

“The exhibition is a bit paradoxical, because it has one of the heaviest -theoretical- themes, an existential theme that the expression deals with. On the other hand, he has a great joy. Basically, it is a political issue and it is remarkable how many different versions and perceptions and feelings the works evoke,” said, for her part, the director of MOMus – Museum of Contemporary Art – Thuli Misirloglou.

Vanitas. Stories from beyond

Many of the works predate the exhibition, while some were created specifically for it. Also on display are works by Ivan Kliun from MOMus-Museum of Modern Art-Kostakis Collection, drawings and engravings by Moritz Retzsch, Gustav Klucis and Frans Masereel, as well as an etching of Arnold Böcklin’s ‘Island of the Dead’, based on the third variation of the painting by the artist and printed in Moscow in the 1880s.

The opening of the exhibition will take place tonight at 8, while it will remain on the premises of MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Collections of the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art (within TEF), until March 03, 2024.