The exhibition tries to find answers to the following questions: how the still-life motive evolved in art? What’s the attitude of contemporary artists towards this tradition and how it’s being interpreted by them?
The starting point for this exhibition was a book – Nature morte by Michael Petry, the director of MOCA London, in which he shows still-life and its history as a complex artistic problem. The author divides the main subject into 5 topics: flora, fauna, food, houseware and death. Each of them is reflected through the works displayed at the exhibition. The curators concentrate on the works by contemporary artists of many nationalities and artistic circles and combine them with works selected from the host’s collection of both contemporary and historical art. Displaying still-life in many contexts, they go beyond a presentation of traditional painting techniques.