On view October 13, 2018 - July 21, 2019

Death Is Irrelevant

Selections from the Marc and Livia Straus Collection, 1975–2018

“Death is a mirror in which the entire meaning of life is reflected.”
― Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Like Prometheus, who shaped men out of mud, and Athena, who breathed life into these figures, do sculptures created in our image suggest a will to exist? Are they a form of self-preservation, a reflection of their creator’s environment, or a grasp at immortality? Death Is Irrelevant examines these questions through the presentation of figurative sculpture from the Marc and Livia Straus Collection. Featuring works created over a forty-year period (1975–2018) from seventeen different countries, it is a contemporary examination of our timeless inclination to recreate ourselves, explore fragility and mortality, and consider what it means to be alive.

Death Is Irrelevant: Selections from the Marc and Livia Straus Collection, 1975–2018 is co-curated by Ken Tan, Tim Hawkinson, MARC STRAUS Gallery, in collaboration with the Marc and Livia Straus Family.

Featured Artists

Pawel Althamer (Poland), Huma Bhabha (Pakistan), Berlinde DeBruyckere (Belgium), Folkert de Jong (Netherlands), Keith Edmier (USA), Nicole Eisenman (USA), Red Grooms (USA), Damien Hirst (UK), Sam Jinks (Australia), Matt Johnson (USA), Chris Jones (UK), Mark Manders (Netherlands), Tony Matelli (USA), Maria Nepomuceno (Brazil), Evan Penny (Canada), Patricia Piccinini (Australia), Rona Pondick (USA), Adrián Villar Rojas (Argentina), Italo Scanga (Italy), Claudette Schreuders (South Africa), Abdi Setiawan (Indonesia), Kiki Smith, (USA), Rebecca Warren (UK), Paloma Varga Weisz (Germany), Olav Westphalen (Germany), and Entang Wiharso (Indonesia).