From Death to Death and Other Small Tales
Until 8 September 2013
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Belford Road, Edinburgh
Free admission
From Death to Death and Other Small Tales brings together works from the D.Daskalopoulos Collection, one of the most important private collections of modern and contemporary art, with masterpieces from the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. This innovative exhibition comprises approximately 130 works and creates a new and dynamic context for both collections.
Through surprising juxtapositions between works of art, the exhibition highlights the significance of the body as a theme in 20th- and 21st-century art and features many world-class artworks that have never been seen before in Scotland. Many of the most significant names in modern and contemporary art are represented—figures whose output and ideas have shaped the way in which subsequent generations of artists have developed. Artists include Marina Abramović, Matthew Barney, Hans Bellmer, Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Robert Gober, David Hammons, Mike Kelley, Sarah Lucas, Ana Mendieta, René Magritte, Ernesto Neto, Pablo Picasso and Kiki Smith.
To celebrate this major exhibition, join us for a series of exciting events this May, including the DEMERGON Conversation Series.
Corporeality in Art
Monday 6–Wednesday 8 May, 6–7:30pm
Sessions 1 & 2: Hawthornden Lecture Theatre, Scottish National Gallery
Session 3: Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Modern One
This course, led by Dr Jonathan Blackwood, art historian and curator, considers in detail some of the ways in which the body—from birth to death—has been represented in European art since c.1750. Over the course of three lectures, we will discuss the figurative tradition, its mutations in modern and contemporary art, and conclude with an in-depth tour of From Death to Death and Other Small Tales at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
Artist Ernesto Neto in conversation with Michael Asbury
Friday 24 May, 6–7pm
Hawthornden Lecture Theatre, Scottish National Gallery; free
Known for his ethereal, abstract sculptures, Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto makes a rare visit to Scotland to talk about his work with Dr Michael Asbury, Reader in the Theory and History of Art at University of the Arts, London. Neto’s extraordinary and multi-sensory installation It Happens When the Body is Anatomy of Time, 2000, is one of the key works in From Death to Death and Other Small Tales. Part of the DEMERGON Conversation Series in collaboration with the National Galleries of Scotland. Supported by DEMERGON.
Contemporary Art is an Easy Thing to Hate
Saturday 25 May, 2–3pm
Hawthornden Lecture Theatre, Scottish National Gallery; free
Contemporary art is an easy thing to hate. Professor Simon Critchley, Hans Jonas Professor, New School for Social Research, New York, lists some of those reasons in gruesome and florid detail before giving at least one reason why we should still love it. In order to make the latter case, Critchley focuses on the work of the French artist Philippe Parreno, in particular, his short films. He develops a phenomenology of aesthetic experience based around a reversal of intentionality, an attention to sensuousness and an acute sense of the fictional. Critchley also considers the work of a selection of artists who feature in From Death to Death and Other Small Tales, and the question of contemporary art’s complicity with capital and whether there is still a space for critique, resistance and distance in the art world. Part of the DEMERGON Conversation Series in collaboration with the National Galleries of Scotland. Supported by DEMERGON.
For further events relating to From Death to Death and Other Small Tales visit nationalgalleries.org.
For any enquires, related to DEMERGON please contact meredith [at] suttonpr.com.
