C'EST LA VIE! VANITÉS DE CARAVAGE À DAMIEN HIRST - VANITÉS DU XV AU XXI SIÈCLE

In The Vanitas Record, Koen Theys shows in detail books, crawling snails, buzzing (alarm) clocks and extinguishing candles. Slowly, he adds a second layer of (self) relativity and (self) irony, inserting pieces from radio and television interviews he had on the occasion of building this ‘record’. In the second part, the video turns almost into grand guignol, as Theys blows up the already large press and public attention at the opening of his homonym installation to the proportions of a mass event where visitors and press are leading to roaring applause and a bombing of flash sounds.
Theys’ video will be presented in the group show “C’est la vie! - Vanités de Caravage à Damian Hirst” which includes around 160 works of art, paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos, jewellery and art objects from the mosaicists of Pompeii to the painters of the medieval dances of death, from the vanitas painters of the 17th century to the surrealists of the 20th, from the exponents of Neo-Pop art to the agents provocateurs of the most recent art.