review on morbid curiosity

Honestly, the exhibition could easily make one physically sick, and emotionally affected. “The Morbid Curiosity the Richard Harris Collection” held in Chicago cultural center is one of those rare and memorable experiences that could get stuck in one’s head for a lifetime. Richard Harris’s art collection expresses his fascination about death with nearly 1000 pieces that explore the iconography of death across time and culture. A central theme, the hollowness of this world’ s pleasures in the face of death is represented with objects that represent the seductive attractions of life and symbols that remind the viewer of the rapidity of the passage time. The two main components of this exhibition are the “War Room”, a collection of five great war series, and the “ Kunstkammer of Death”, a collection featuring a wide- ranging survey of mortality across different historical periods and different cultures. Both rooms filled with fearsome and dreadful collectibles were evenly appalling, and only few things such as three dimensional objects like sculls that were made of beads, glass, wood or metal, chandelier made of bones and “The Death of Venus” was not too bad to look at. Everything else in the exhibition literally could made one sick to his stomach. One of the creepiest things in the gallery was the baby in the highchair with a bomb attached instead of his head and the children in the circle holding hands dressed up in the military uniforms. Art pieces and arrangements like these two really affect and encourage the viewer to focus on human mortality and the purpose of life. The probably grossest object that was there was a shocking “meat art” piece that was named “Are you still mad at me?” It was a representation of realistic human body, or whatever was left of it, as an anatomical model. The theme mainly emphasizes the fragility of the human body and explores biological aspects of human body as well. Another very interesting piece of Richard Harris collection was “Hanging Figure” were the artist emphasizes on transitional nature of death. The suspended human skeleton figure shows the parts of body reassembled and held together with a sea grass. Overall, his collection was fascinating by the variety of different art pieces that he was able to collect. Photographs, paintings, three dimensional objects in a very large or miniature scale, represented both interior and exterior of the human body in a very unique and traumatizing way.