On show from 10 April to 18 August 2019, the exhibition ‘BEYOND’ features seven international artistic positions from the Olbricht Collection, who use their respective art forms to explore the subject of the afterlife. Each artist fills a separate space with art in their chosen media, ranging from painting, sculpture, video, installation to printmaking.
As a kind of vague assumption, sinister threat, or blissful reward, the idea of the ‘afterlife’ has gripped mankind since the beginning of time. Religious promises of salvation, manifested psychosis, and ominous memento mori conjure a nebulous concept of the ‘beyond’. While the depiction of agony and death evokes the transience of earthly life, mythical illusory worlds oscillate between the here and the there, catastrophe and dream-like beauty, the material world and the hereafter. The ‘other side’ is also invariably always much farther removed than that casual phrase may make it sound, something illusively much greater than ourselves that is there to be attained, understood, and discovered.
Belgian conceptual artist Kris Martin maanifests a finely tuned memento mori aimed at the collective cultural memory, striking a softer note amongst the other artists and their work. Serving as an overall counterpoint is his monumental sword, whose deadly message is taken to a point of absurdity through the sculpture’s sheer size.