The Iconography Of Death
“Welcome to Morbid Curiosity: The Richard Harris Collection,” Explore Chicago announced in January. “This groundbreaking exhibition, one of the Chicago Cultural Center’s largest to date, showcases over five hundred artworks and other artifacts from the personal collection of Chicago-based collector Richard Harris. Amassed over several decades, Harris’s collection explores the iconography of death across cultures and traditions spanning nearly six thousand years, and includes works by some of the greatest artists of our time.
“To help guide your visit, the exhibition is organized into two major sections: The War Room, which deals with the horrors and reactions to war expressed through art; and The Kunstkammer of Death, a play on the traditional European term for a ‘cabinet of curiosities.’ While the subject matter may seem a bit macabre, artists have long derived inspiration from death, mortality, and the impermanence of human existence. This eclectic collection examines these concepts from centuries past to the present day.”
Let’s take a look.
1. The city uploaded this video to YouTube this week:
–
2. “A stop motion documentation of the latest installment of the Guerra de la Paz installation, TRIBUTE. On view at The Chicago Cultural Center, as part of the exhibition, MORBID CURIOSITY, The Richard Harris Collection. January 28 – July 8, 2012.”
–
3. From Chicago Tonight:
“Riverwoods antiques dealer Richard Harris has an unusual collection: over 1,000 pieces of art and artifacts of the morbid and macabre.
“From high-end Goya prints to decades-old photographs he’s picked up for $5, much of his collection is now on display at the Chicago Cultural Center’s Morbid Curiosity.”
–
Comments welcome.
Posted on March 30, 2012