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| Janelle Lynch Summer Wreath 2016 pigment print Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Toufic Beyhum Untitled 2016 inkjet print Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Thomas Demand Junior Suite 2012 C-print Minneapolis Institute of Art |
"Whitney Houston's death from a drug overdose in a Beverly Hills hotel room in 2012 evoked a huge public response. The singer's name was Googled more than any other name for the entire year. This work is the response of one artist to that event. In this photograph German artist Thomas Demand recreated a tabloid image of the room-service table from which Houston was eating just before her death. If you look closely, you can see that the entire image has been fabricated; from the hotel furniture to the purple flowers, Demand painstakingly constructed everything you see from colored paper. This image of Houston's "last supper" has become an iconic image of her death, even without picturing Houston herself. The viewer is granted the illusion of intimacy with Houston and the situation of her death through a morbid invasion of her privacy. In an interview with the New York Times in April 2012, Demand commented on his shock at the existence of such an image in the media: "The proliferation of that kind of image at the time when she was not even in the coffin amazed me. It amazed me that it would ever have been released."
– from curator's notes at the Minneapolis Institute of Art
"And more, I even dared to cast my cries
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| Thomas Demand Vault 2012 C-print Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
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| Thomas Demand Daily #25 2015 dye transfer print Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
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| Thomas Demand Workshop 2017 C-print Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Siamak Filizadeh Death of Amir Qasim 2014 inkjet print Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Siamak Filizadeh Murder of Amir Kabir 2014 inkjet print Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Cathleen Naundorf The Legacy Lives On I (shot in storage vaults at the V&A) 2014 Lambda print from original Polaroid Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Cathleen Naundorf The Legacy Lives On III (shot in storage vaults at the V&A) 2014 Lambda print from original Polaroid Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Cathleen Naundorf The Legacy Lives On IV (shot in storage vaults at the V&A) 2014 gelatin silver print Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Cathleen Naundorf The Legacy Lives On V (shot in storage vaults at the V&A) 2014 gelatin silver print Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Peyman Hooshmandzadeh Untitled 2012 inkjet print Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Peyman Hooshmandzadeh Untitled 2015 inkjet print Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Janna Ireland Hancock Park, House 1, Number 1 2017 inkjet print Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Charlotte Dumas Peter, Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington VA 2019 collotype Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia |
"And more, I even dared to cast my cries
across the shadows; in my sorrow, I –
again, again, in vain – called for Creüsa;
my shouting filled the streets. But as I rushed
my shouting filled the streets. But as I rushed
and raged among the houses endlessly,
before my eyes there stood the effigy
and grieving shade of my Creüsa, image
far larger than the real. I was dismayed;
my hair stood stiff, my voice held fast within
my jaws. She spoke; her words undid my cares:
'O my sweet husband, is there any use
in giving way to such fanatic sorrow?
For this could never come to pass without
the gods' decree, and you are not to carry
Creüsa as your comrade, since the king
of high Olympus does not grant you that.
Along your way lie long exile, vast plains
of sea that you must plow; but you will reach
Hesperia, where Lydian Tiber flows,
a tranquil stream, through farmer's fruitful fields.
There days of gladness lie in wait for you:
a kingdom and a royal bride. Enough
of tears for loved Creüsa. I am not
to see the haughty homes of Myrmidons
or of Dolopians, or be a slave
to Grecian matrons – I, a Dardan woman
and wife of Venus' son. It is the gods'
great Mother who keeps me upon these shores.
And now farewell, and love the son we share."
– Aeneas is addressed by Creüsa's shade, from Book II of Virgil's Aeneid, translated by Allen Mandelbaum (1971)
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| Jane Hammond The Touch-Up 2015 selenium-toned gelatin silver print Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York |