Between not-daring-to-look and being-unable-to-look-away
Six Feet Under «Autopsy of our relation to the dead»
Violence and death are omnipresent in the media, yet our society avoids directcontact with dead people. The corpse has been definitively removed from ourfield of vision and replaced by a new system of rituals and symbols intended tohelp us deal with the finiteness of human existence. The skull, for example, hasbeen transformed from a subcultural emblem to a chic mainstream fashion accessory;the American television production Six Feet Under featuring the family Fisher and their funeral parlour in Pasadena has become a very popular cult series, also in Europe; or Corpse Bride by Tim Burton reveals a truly amusing life after death.
Other countries and civilisations often have more direct contact with the dead, which is mostly compensated by a greater degree of ritualisation. Repression, catharsis, de-symbolisation, metaphor, the invention of substitute rituals, neutralization, black humour and other such instruments have always been, and continue to be used, in ever new formsso as to redress our natural awkwardness in the face of the idea of death and the body of the dead person. Death is a universal theme in art. Two extremes are evident in contemporary art: either art re-conquers the ritual, which was surrendered by religion to highly professional service providers or to the media, and restages or extends it using its own means; or else certain artists bring the undesirable corpse back into our field of vision (one would call this the “Trouble with Harry-syndrome”) in order to show us, in an often very direct way, that (physical) existence (also) continues after death.
Six Feet Under is an exhibition made up of works from the collections of the Berne Fine Arts Museum and from other public and private collections as well as works specially created for the show, ranging from the 16th century to today, and originating from different continents and civilisations – Europe, America, Mexico, China, India, Thailand, Ghana. The exhibition is divided into six (Six Feet Under! ) chapters: 1. Corpses, skulls and bones 2. Tombs, coffins and tears 3. Homages to loved and admired ones 4. The artist’s death 5. Death and lifestyle 6. After-death. The exhibition is completed by a catalogue, several special events, guided tours and a movie programme.
