Text

Edward Penfield
Harper's - May
1895
lithograph (poster for magazine)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Frank Hazenplug-
Galloping Dick
1896
lithograph (poster for novel)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Omer Parent
Have a Camel
1926
gouache on board (design for poster)
Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec

Viktor Savchenko
Pravda
1964
offset-print (poster for newspaper)
Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina

Burhan Dogançay
J. Payn Window
1966
mixed media on plexiglas
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Yoko Ono and John Lennon
War Is Over
ca. 1969
lithograph (poster)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Robert Frank
June Leaf, Iona, Nova Scotia
1980
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Braldt Bralds
Martin Luther
1983
oil on panel
(commissioned by Time magazine)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Kathe Burkhart
Prick: from the Liz Taylor Series (Suddenly Last Summer)
1987
acrylic paint and collage on canvas
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Christopher Wool
Untitled
1990
enamel on paper
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Reinier Lucassen
Untitled
1992
oil paint and marble dust on canvas
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Cornel Windlin
Birth of the Cool - Kunsthaus, Zürich
1997
lithograph (poster)
Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum

Barbara Kruger
Untitled
2011
inkjet print on vinyl
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Franck Gohier
Red Hand Prints
2013
screenprint (poster)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Mirko Borsche
Boris Godunow - Bayerische Staatsoper
2013
offset-print (poster)
Art Institute of Chicago

Tom Scicluna
Ordinance No. C-14-23
2014
neon signage
NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Kristin Cochran
Fare Well
2020
neon signage
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas

from Juvenals tenth Satyre Translated

What then should man pray for? what is't that he

Can beg of Heaven, without Impiety?

Take my advice: first to the Gods commit

All cares; for they things competent, and fit

For us foresee; besides man is more deare

To them, than to himselfe: we blindly here

Led by the world, and lust, in vaine assay

To get us portions, wives, and sonnes; but they

Already know all that we can intend,

And of our Childrens Children see the end.

    Yet that thou may'st have something to commend

With thankes unto the Gods for what they send;

Pray for a wise, and knowing soule, a sad

Discreet, true valour, that will scorne to adde

A needlesse horrour to thy death; that knowes

'Tis but a debt which man to nature owes;

That starts not at misfortunes, that can sway,

And keeps all passions under locke and key;

That covets nothing, wrongs none, and preferres

An honest want before rich injurers;

All this thou hast within thy selfe, and may

Be made thy owne, if thou wilt take the way;

What boots the worlds wild, loose applause? what can

Fraile, perillous honours adde unto a man?

What length of years, wealth, or a rich faire wife?

Vertue alone can make a happy life.

– Juvenal (AD 50-127), translated by Henry Vaughan (1646)

Rotterdam

Oskar Kokoschka
The Mandrill
1926
oil on canvas
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Co Westerik
Studies of Rob Doorman
1944
drawing
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Vincent van Gogh
Vase with Carnations
1886
oil on canvas
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Camille Pissarro
Les Coteaux, Auvers
1882
oil on canvas
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Michelangelo Buonarroti
Arm Studies for The Drunkenness of Noah
(fresco study for the Sistine ceiling)
ca. 1508
drawing
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Helena van der Kraan
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
1995
gelatin silver print
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Jan Sluijters
Dumping Carts
1907
oil on canvas
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Koen Taselaar
001
2013
screenprint
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Koen Taselaar
004
2013
screenprint
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Jacoba van Heemskerck
Bild no. 66
1917
oil on canvas
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Jacoba van Heemskerck
Composition in Color no. 100
ca. 1918
oil on canvas
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Anton Eisenhoit
Allegorical Figure of Faith
1591
engraving
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Hippolyte Flandrin
Study for Le Dante aux Enfers
ca. 1834-35
drawing (study for painting)
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Paulo Veronese
Supper at Emmaus
ca. 1565-70
oil on canvas
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Charlotte Schleiffert
Painting
1998
mixed media on canvas
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Meret Oppenheim
Sous les résédas
1955
oil on panel
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Ugo Rondinone
Breathe Walk Die
2014
installation of aluminum, plexiglas & neon
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

    Now although death were an extreme pain, sith it comes in an instant, what can it be?  Why should we fear it, for while we are, it cometh not, and it being come, we are no more?  Nay, though it were most painful, long continuing, and terrible-ugly, why should we fear it, sith fear is a foolish passion but where it may preserve?  But it cannot preserve us from death; yea, rather fear maketh us to meet with that which we would shun, and banishing the comforts of present contentments, bringeth death more near unto us.  That is ever terrible which is unknown; so do little children fear to go in the dark, and their fear is increased with tales.  

    But that, perhaps, which anguisheth thee most, is to have this glorious pageant of the world removed from thee in thy prime and most delicious season of thy life; for, though to die be usual, to die young may appear extraordinary.  If the present fruition of these things be unprofitable and vain, what can a long continuance of them be?  If God had made life happier, he had also made it longer.  Stranger and new Halcyon, why wouldst thou longer nestle amidst these unconstant and stormy waves.  Hast thou not already suffered enough of this world, but thou must yet endure more?

– William Drummond of Hawthornden, from A Cypress Grove (London: Hawthornden Press, 1919, reprinting the original edition of 1623)

Nauman

Bruce Nauman
Self Portrait as a Fountain
1966
dye transfer print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Bruce Nauman
Eye-Level Piece
1966
painted cardboard
Dallas Museum of Art

Bruce Nauman
From Hand to Mouth
1967
wax
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Bruce Nauman
The true artist helps the world
by revealing mystic truths
1967
neon
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Bruce Nauman
Dance or Exercise on the Perimeter of a Square
(Square Dance)
1967-68
film still
Art Institute of Chicago

Elayne Varian
Bruce Nauman
ca. 1969
gelatin silver print
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Bruce Nauman
Perfect Door - Perfect Odor - Perfect Rodo
1972
neon
Dallas Museum of Art

Bruce Nauman
SUGAR / RAGUS
1973
lithograph and screenprint
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Gianfranco Gorgoni
Bruce Nauman
1975
gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum

Bruce Nauman
Malice
ca. 1980
neon
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Bruce Nauman
Diamond Africa with Chair Tuned D E A D
1981
steel and cast iron
Art Institute of Chicago

Bruce Nauman
Human Nature / Life Death
1983
neon
Art Institute of Chicago

Bruce Nauman
White Anger - Red Danger - Yellow Peril - Black Death
1984
acrylic, pastel and collage on paper
Art Institute of Chicago

Bruce Nauman
Self Portrait
1990
drypoint
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Bruce Nauman
Installation of Animal Pyramid at Des Moines Art Center
ca. 1990
gelatin silver print
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Bruce Nauman
Hand Circle
1995
Polaroid
(wax patterns for bronze sculpture)
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Bruce Nauman
Hand Circle
1996
bronze
Indianapolis Museum of Art

from Horace His Art of Poetry, Imitated in English

Should some ill Painter in a wild design

To a mans Head an Horses shoulders joyn,

Or Fishes Tail to a fair Womans Waste,

Or draw the Limbs of many a different Beast, 

Ill matched, and with as motly Feathers drest;

If you by chance were to pass by his Shop;

Could you forbear from laughing at the Fop,

And not believe him whimsical or mad?

Credit me, Sir, that Book is quite as bad,

As worthy laughter, which throughout is filled

With monstrous inconsistencies, more vain and wild

Than sick mens Dreams, whose neither head, nor tail,

Nor any parts in due proportion fall. 

– Horace (65-8 BC), translated by John Oldham (1681)