Exhibition
Vanitas: The Transience of Earthly Pleasures - Sierra Leone Embassy
The Age of the Marvellous exhibition, which attracted over 4,000 visitors during Frieze Art Fair last October was in ArtLyst's top ten exhibitions of 2009. Now All Visual Arts (AVA) has opened its fall show Vanitas: 'The Transience of Earthly Pleasures'. Conceived and curated by Joe La Placa and Mark Sanders of AVA, the exhibition is a contemporary update on the four hundred year old theme of the Vanitas. The show is mounted in the sumptuous setting of a Georgian mansion at 33 Great Portland Street during this year’s Frieze Art Fair from October the 11th until the 17th. Artists include, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Nicola Bolla, Polly Morgan,Tim Nobel and Sue Webster.
Vanitas is a genre of symbolic art work associated with still life painting in Flanders and the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The word is Latin, meaning "emptiness" and loosely translated corresponds to the meaninglessness of earthly life and the transient nature of vanity. Common vanitas symbols include skulls, which are a reminder of the certainty of death; rotten fruit, which symbolizes decay like ageing; bubbles, which symbolize the brevity of life and suddenness of death; smoke, watches, and hourglasses, which symbolize the brevity of life. This curiosity shop of weird and wonderful imagery is beautifully hung and lit,creating an exciting and original exhibition a must see for 2010.
ArtLyst Video - Vanitas - The Transience of Earthly Pleasures
