Exhibition challenges viewers to consider their own lives ‘Between the Clock and the Bed’

Natalija Mijatovic's recent work "Sneyg," acrylic and conté on wood.

In one of his last works, “Self Portrait Between the Clock and the Bed,” Norwegian painter and printmaker Edvard Munch depicted himself standing between two symbols of death, in a vibrant room flooded with light and ringed round by his own paintings. Munch hovers there in the midst of his own mortality, challenging the viewer to consider his or her own life’s work.

“Death is the birth of life,” wrote the artist, whose works also include the series “Frieze of Life,” which includes six versions of the painting titled “The Sick Child.” These are variations of works depicting his sister’s death, which Munch created over the course of 40 years.

Indeed, mortality has been a universal theme in art throughout time and location, regardless of age, gender, or ethnicity.

“Between Clock and Bed,” a new exhibition at the Institute of Sacred Music (ISM), investigates the motif of mortality through the work of six distinct artists: Laura Mosquera, Natalija Mijatovic, Kirsten Moran, Stephen Knudsen, Kenny Jensen, and Ronny Rysz. (Rysz is senior associate of communications and marketing at the Yale Center for British Art.) Each artist directly or indirectly works with themes of death in myriad ways.

The exhibition, curated by Jon Seals M.A.R. ’15, is meant to encourage students, faculty, staff, and visitors of the Yale Divinity School and Yale Institute of Sacred Music “to learn more about their own lives in the midst of death,” according to a press announcement of the exhibition.

“Many observers have entered their own anxiety through an artist’s wounds on canvas and found kindred spirits: artists that may know some of their own pain,” the announcement notes. “Others have found sobering echoes of joy and exuberance in art that encourages its viewers to live life well. Thankfully Munch did not create his ‘Frieze of Life’ with only two themes, death and anxiety, but balanced these with a third theme, that of love (albeit a fractured love). His personal writings demonstrate that he allows for, and in some cases hopes for, love to enter in; this love includes and presupposes divine love.”

The exhibition, co-hosted by Yale Divinity School, will run through June 2 at ISM, 409 Prospect St. Hours are 9 a.m.-4 p.m. The show is free and open to the public.

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service - if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read the FAQ at http://ift.tt/jcXqJW.

Exhibition challenges viewers to consider their own lives ‘Between the Clock and the Bed’