Alex Verhaest's Temps Mort is currently on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art Busan in the exhibition 2020 Collection: Confronting Today’s Questions.
‘Temps Mort’ is based on a script detailing the immediate aftermath of the tragic suicide of a family’s patriarch. The work consists of ‘The Dinner,’ a joint portrait of the family, ‘Character Study,’ portraits of individual members of the family, and ‘Table Prop,’ a series of still life paintings.
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The work delicately captures the emotional agitation inside the characters, bringing the motif of death into conversation with each character symbolizing human sins such as greed, laziness, and vanity. The artwork reinterprets the visual characteristics of the portraits of Lucas Cranach the Elder and the still-life paintings of Peter Claesz.
