I recently returned from a few days in Chicago. We had one really cold day (I’m sure the locals would have a hearty laugh at my description of 40 degrees F as cold). Despite the weather, we took a river tour of Chicago’s architecture on our second day there, which I highly recommend.
One of our first stops: the Macy’s flower show for some cheerful, brightly colored, campy fun.
And I still find the old Marshall Field’s store (now housing Macy’s) to be one of the grandest department store buildings I’ve ever seen.
Marshall Field’s (now Macy’s) atrium from above. Photo courtesy of www.city-data.com.
A favorite part of traveling is stumbling upon places/events that are not on your itinerary. One such highlight of this trip was a fascinating exhibit, Morbid Curiosity, at the Chicago Cultural Center, that considered how various artists – from diverse time periods and cultures – presented the idea of human mortality in their work.
Does the influence of monotheistic religion seem to predict accurately a culture’s view of death? I think so.
Portion of The Death March by Hugo Crosthwaite
Monotheistic religions tend to view the afterlife as a time to mete out rewards or punishments rather than a continuation of human existence on some different level beyond the physical. When your cosmology includes beings with varying agendas that inhabit different planes of existence, the afterlife pulses with possibilities and leads to the expectation of overlapping realities and a less morose view of death. If our deceased loved ones get to visit us once a year (as on Dia de los Muertos in Mexico) then we’ll get to do the same when we’ve moved beyond this physical sphere.
Day of the Dead display. Photo courtesy of http://morbidanatomy.blogspot.com/2012/05/morbid-curiosity-richard-harris.html.
War and its human costs was also common subject matter in the exhibit. Since WWI, western art has moved away from the glorification of war and towards the grim depictions common in the art of German Expressionism through to the present.
Der Krieg by Otto Dix. Photo courtesy of http://www.artsconnected.org/collection/98627/protest-and-persuasion?print=true#(1).
Two Cuban-born artists, Alain Guerra and Neraldo de la Paz – who go by the apt moniker Guerra de la Paz – had some of the most disturbing and thought provoking pieces in the show.
Pieta by Guerra de la Paz. Photo courtesy of http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/5026/guerra-de-la-paz.html.
No photos were allowed in the main gallery (the first two above I took in the entry hall), so I’ve scrounged around to find images wherever I could.
The Death of Venus, Roger Reutimann. Photo courtesy of http://chicago-outdoor-sculptures.blogspot.com/2012/02/morbid-curiosity-richard-harris_5380.html.
For more pics from the show, check out this blog.