λήθη–Lethe

Greek mythology says the entrance into the underworld is guarded by Cerberus – a three-headed dog of fire. It is supposed to keep the souls of the dead from getting back into the normal world and the living from getting into the realm of the dead. Five rivers divide the world of the living and the underworld: the all-freezing river Styx, the Acheron, the river of woe, the Cocytus, the river of wailing, the Phlegethon, the river of fire, and the dark river Lethe whose waters make you forget everything earthly. Charon, the ferryman on the river Styx, carries souls over, but only for a coin. The artist tries to confront these ancient references with our modern days where the feelings of emptiness and ephemerality are just as present as they have been across the history of mankind. The artist revives some of these historic “phantoms”, confronts them with our present days and uses them to communicate with the public. Whether it is burial gifts, decaying sculptures of gods or destroyed pieces of art, they are portrayed as traces of conflicts that have changed the world. 

The presented collection of works portrays the artist as a painter deeply interested in portraits. He will confront the visitor with images depicting a child’s skull, his appropriation of Arnold Böcklin’s “Isle of the Dead” or the portrait of the “Queen of the Night” – an unreal rendition of Margaréta Brabantská. 

The themes of dark ephemerality and forgetfulness are supposed to be metaphors. The five rivers of the underworld represent five different emotions. The exhibition is interlaced with the motifs of forgetting (Lethe) and remembering as the dead were supposed to drink from the river Lethe upon entering the underworld in order to forget about their former existence…