La Vie et la Mort, Leben und Tod

La Vie et la Mort, Leben und Tod (life and death) postcard c. 1900-10

"As a young couple bid a poignant fair well to each other in this turn of the century interpretation of the vanitas theme. The phrase "Vanitas vanitatum omnia Vanitas" comes from the bible (Ecclesiates I) and is translated as "vanity of vanities; all is vanity", a moralistic invitation to dwell not on the pursuit of earthly pleasures but on the necessity of eternal salvation."

I'm including this into my research as the skull is being used as a symbolised message it's trying to get across to the viewer. 

Andy Warhol's brush with death

Untitled, Andy Warhol ( 1928-1987, USA)

Photographs, machine-sewn, 1987

"This patchwork of photographs appeared in a special edition of the magazine Parkett in 1987, the same year as Warhol's death. Writing in the issue, Glen O'Brien, a former member of Warhol's studio the Factory, observed "Andy was what a sports fan call a most valuable player. His works are more valuable now, but not because he's not around himself. Those works are souvenirs and relics. They're pieces of Andy.

Warhol's interested in mortality was perhaps informed by his own brush with death: in 1968 he survived being shot in the chest three times in the chest by Valerie Solanas.  

Smile for the camera

      I like the juxtaposition of the family/group photographs: they're all sat really formally and quite stiff and they don't smile, that is until I draw on the Skelton grin- I think it's quite unnerving.

This one I used a cut out print of a skull (from my Rothwell visit ) influenced more by George Grosz - I like the result but as I'm hoping to use a lot of photographs I find using a pen allows me to be less restricted in depicting  the skull faces as I can work with the faces in the photographs which I think flows better. 

Like this one for example.

Pose for the camera

To keep in with the theme of "death" I've drew skull characteristics over their faces, I think this will create different feelings within different viewers as I've discussed earlier that death is a very subject thing to the individual. Also skulls are inexplicably linked with death: take the poison symbol for example with is a skull and cross bones.

You will become as we are

After looking at Raya and Grosz's pieces it influenced me to make some work in a similar way.

I've decided to use Victorian and early 20th c. Era photographs, I feel they have a certain atmospheric quality. They appear more frozen in time, Perhaps photographs were more of a special occasion back then as the commodity wasn't as readily available or as disposable in contrast to our social media and "selfie" era. As a result they dressed more formally for the photos which make it more poignant with a touch of melancholy when it dawns on you that the people you see are long gone.. Is this photo in which I have of them the last image depicting them? Of their existence? 

George Grosz

                    Faces of death

George Grosz (1893- 1959, Germany)

                    Collage, 1958 

    " George's witty collage reveals the final truth about death - it's uncanny faceless ness. By transposing skulls onto 'found' photographic portraits, the artist is also poking fun at the conventions of art and advertising. 

Marcos Raya

"Raya's images remind us of the disquieting reality haunting every photograph: the presence of death in our own lives and in the lives of family and friends" Vintage photograph with gouache and ink 2005 ( b. 1948, Mexico)

      Untitled (family portrait: woman in yellow dress) vintage photograph with mixed media 2005
      Untitled (family portrait: grandma. Vintage photograph with gouache and ink, 2005