Beyond the Body

Erzsébet Baerveldt, Caspar Berger, Antoine Berghs, Martin uit den Bogaard, Célio Braga, Alexandra Bremers, Esther Bruggink, David Claerbout, Desirée Dolron, Jeroen Eisinga, Jelle Kampen, Ida van der Lee/Studio Ritual Art, Janpeter Muilwijk, Alet Pilon, Jan Thomas, Jan Dietvorst & Roy Villevoye

Man is the only animal that can foresee his own death. We are mortals and we know it.

How to tame our fears? How to reconcile ourselves with the disappearance of our individual personality, that is treated as the key value in the West? How to console the survivors?

What does it mean, death? Is there something beyond the body? Is there a soul?

These questions have engaged man since time immemorial. People pondered about it in philosophy, religion and art, without being able to find a definitive answer (those who think they found answers, are called ‘believers’). One day we will pass this door of no return and no one can tell us what happened.

In our secularized era we indulge in the display of perfect beauty and eternal youth in advertisements and the media. Death is a black hole that we try to ignore. But we will die anyway, no matter what medical technology or cosmic surgery.

In this vacuum, this ‘religious deficit’ as it is called by the University of Nijmegen NL, these questions about death trigger the imagination of contemporary artists, without being able to give answers. We don’t know.  We can only use our imagination. And from that originates art.

While walking through the exhibition the visitor will experience a symbolic last passage through different stages: Before Death - Death - After Death - Survivors/ Commemoration